


Squaring the Circle

by kriadydragon



Category: Stargate: Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-24
Updated: 2006-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-16 20:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kriadydragon/pseuds/kriadydragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obsessions are unhealthy. And so is being on the wrong end of an obsessive's experiment. Yep, good times indeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

A/N: It happened again. Another story inspired by my American McGee's Alice game. I haven't been able to play any of my computer games thanks to Windows ME being such crap, so I'm going through a smidgen of withdrawl. I find computer games a good way to clear the head and get into writing mode. Anywho, the inspiration for this came from the remark Griffin makes about the Mad Hatter's obsession with turning everyone into clockwork machines, and how he's like the mathematician trying to square the circle. No, this isn't a crossover, I'm not big on doing those kinds of crossovers. The plot is all mine. This is just some craziness I felt like writing. So be warned, it's a strange one. Not to mention a little sad.

I would also like to give credit to Drufan. Having Sheppard go nutty in her story motivated me. So thanks.

 **Squaring the Circle**

by

Stealth Dragon

Rating T for violence and disturbing content. Yum. :p

Disclaimer: Don't own this, don't have any affiliation with the people who create Stargate, because if I did, Sheppard would get whumped more and I doubt he'd like that.

Synopsis: There's always a price to pay when being on the wrong end of an experiment. There's really no such thing as a healthy obsession. Possible spoilers for Epiphany, The Gift, Duet, and whatever else pops up. Takes place after my story Jabberwocky, not that you have to read it or anything. Critter John will not be making an appearance though, sorry.

SGA

John was conditioned to expecting certain sounds and smells when coming back around to awareness after the darkness. Beeping of the heart monitor, the stinging scent of disinfectant, and the occasional mumbled conversation or clacking of a laptop keyboard. Always sounds first, then sensations. But it must have been opposite day with no sound to show for waking, only the feel of a useless thin mattress that might as well be wood for all the good it was doing. He assumed he had kicked the blanket away, because he was freezing.

Now where were the sounds?

This change in something he'd rather not consider to be routine made his heart lurch hard in his chest, snatching his breath away. There was a smell, vague but monumentally unpleasant, like a cross between urine and stale body oder.

Definitely not infirmary smell, and he was starting to desperately miss it.

Confusion settled on him like the cold, making him half afraid to open his eyes, yet at the same time prodding him to find out what the hell was going on. So he settled for in between by slowly peeling his eyelids open. The usual blur of sleep-film obscured everything until he blinked it away, revealing very off white walls verging on a kind of putrid yellow coloring. They were solid, smooth, but stained with what looked to be smears and splotches of rust colored water marks.

This confirmed it once and for all – not the infirmary.

John rolled his eyes up to a single light dangling from a cord directly over his head. The light spasmed for three seconds, but struggled back to its wan existence that barely lit the room as it was. Shadows continued maintaining a strong presence in the corners.

John then rolled his eyes down at himself, looking for spots of blood indicating possible injuries. He was wearing what seemed to be thin scrubs colored a light blue-gray, extra large by the way they hung loose on his slender frame. The collar was wide and low to go past his collar bones and allow in an extra amount of cool air to brush along his chest, making him shiver.

Taking in his surroundings allowed the rest of John to rejoin the waking world. He found strength enough in his limbs to prop himself up on his shaky elbows and give the room the full three sixty cursory glance. Four dingy walls, with the bed in the middle against the back wall, a grate in the corner most likely to use in taking care of certain bodily functions, and an iron door with a small barred window across from the foot of the bed.

John stared at the door, narrow eyed, then dropped himself back onto the nearly unrelenting mattress.

" Son of a..." he mumbled through clenched teeth, and squeezed his eyes shut.

Captured. He'd been captured, again. Maybe just him alone, or maybe him and his team, but he couldn't remember. Hell, all he remembered was stepping out of the jumper onto a grassy meadow stretching to the horizon, interrupted by a few hills and tree copes, with mountains rising jagged as teeth in the hazy distance. Rodney had said something about massive energy readings coming from an area marked by well placed stones that had at one time been a massive structure, now could barely qualify as being Stone Henge in likeness. There had been little to see, little to do, and John had occupied himself with wandering around the crumbling edifices, looking without actually seeing, which had probably been a mistake, because then... then...

John rose then tossed himself onto his back with a grunt of frustration. He couldn't remember anything, and more than pissing him off, it was scaring him. Usually he recalled by now some flash of light or enemies jumping out of the wood works to surround them all, then clocking him over the head for good measure. Events should have flooded back into his brain by now, leaving him nothing but furious. But it was opposite day, of course, and fear was starting to drown pissed out. He was used to crappy, filthy cells but this... John couldn't place exactly how or why, but it was different from all the places he'd been held. Surfing and being laid back didn't make John as one being deep into Zen, chi, and the metaphysical, but this place had an aura to it that he couldn't shake off, like something harboring a dark secret rather than blatantly shouting portents of doom. It was too damn quiet, and that silence was pushing against him like plastic being wrapped around his head, making his breathing harsh in his ears, and allowing him to hear his own hammering heart beat.

To his further detriment, he felt suddenly small, and very, very much alone. Not the alone of simply not having his team present, but a solitude that would have him believing that he was the only living being left anywhere in the entire universe, and it was a heavy feeling that could have easily crushed him had it been tangible. Instead, he rolled onto his side and curled into himself, placating his ego by assuring it that he was only trying to get warm. But who was he kidding? He was terrified, like a child in a strange place with parents far, far away.

Very pathetic.

Awareness of how weak he was being came like a smack to the side of the head, and he used that to toss wood to the fire that was his anger, and stoke the sucker until it grew enough to get his body into motion. He bolted upright, then off the bed to start pacing erratically like a caged tiger. He went to the massive iron door, and even his height didn't allow him a view out the small window unless he stood on tip-toe. He grabbed the bars, gripping them tight to haul himself up a little further, turning and angling his head to see as far as the tiny window would allow.

Outside was some sort of corridor with walls made of dark gray stone, and a black and white tile checkered floor that was looking more black and gray. There was another cell door across from his own, with the window black. A few feet to the right and the left were more doors, with the right one the only one showing a lighted window. Also on the right, John caught the edge of what appeared to be a wooden door, maybe the entrance to this place. Looking left, the corridor continued on a ways, with two more doors, then turned right.

It was taking more effort than it should have for John to hold himself up for his look-see. His arms were shaking, and his legs joined them, and with the weakness came the realization that he was hungry. No, starving, his stomach grumbling harshly in the stifling silence. Joining that was a dry mouth and an increasingly parched throat. He lowered himself back to the flat of his feet and turned to search his surroundings for a plate of food or cup of water. He went to the bed, crouched, looked under it, and on finding nothing swallowed nervously with no saliva to moisten is mouth.

Torture tactics; starve them, dehydrate them, beat them, then drug them until they're giving everything away including their mother's maiden name and social security number. Except John was quite adept at never going past name, rank and serial number. Although on occasion he might let his blood type slip and his opinion concerning his tormentors. Painful in the end but fun while it lasted.

John turned back to the door, standing three feet away, and cupped his hands over his mouth.

" He..." he was interrupted by a burning itch in his throat and lungs that had him partially doubled over coughing hard. Sucking in a deep breath, he straightened and tried again.

" He-ey," his voice cracked like a thirteen year old hitting puberty, and he coughed again. He rubbed his throat despite the itch being inside, and worked his tongue trying to gather whatever drops of saliva he could. Instead, he managed to coat his mouth and throat with a stickier substance that rendered talking impossible. Backing up, he lowered himself onto the edge of the foot of the bed with hands clasped in his lap. He had no choice but to wait. Granted, he could have pounded on the door until his hands bled, but wanted to save his strength for the inevitable.

John laid himself back onto the bed, then pushed himself further onto it using his elbows and feet. He lay with hands resting on his chest, staring at the grimy ceiling and pathetic excuse for illumination. Cold crept through the flimsy material of the scrub, down the wide collar, forcing John back on his side wrapping his hands around his middle and bringing his legs up to his chest to conserve warmth for real this time. But the cold merely focused its assault on his back, like arctic breath puffing against his spine and making his flesh goose up. John breathed out a tired sigh. One would think himself accustomed to this by now, except that he didn't want to grow accustomed to it. A human body and mind wasn't supposed to, unless a serious mental flaw had finally developed, and John didn't want to go there.

Yet he could sense a growing feeling of indifference subjugating the usual unease and anger, subduing them down to background emotions rather than his dominant state of mind. Or perhaps it was the hunger and thirst making him too tired to deal with them, and he sincerely hoped that was the case. Were his team here, should they be tortured in order to force him to talk, he didn't want to become one of those soldiers who built up walls around the heart until living a numb existence.

 _Gee, McKay, I'd loved to get all upset about you being mutilated and all, but I really don't care anymore and I like it that way. Oh look, some of your blood's got on my face. How interesting._

John curled even tighter into himself. It was a hell of a lot easier to give into that state of mind than most people thought – when it came to whatever crap was happening to him especially, concerning the pain of others very much so. It pushed when it was others on the receiving end of punches and kicks. Give in to the numb, the cold, the uncaring, and then it wouldn't hurt so damn much later. And it did hurt, way more than any physical pain. Physical pain he would take any day of the week, but mental made him want to rip his own heart out to put a halt to the agony.

It was the helplessness, that was the worst of it. Being right there, and not being able to do a thing about it. But then came the moment of retribution when the calvary charged in, blowing holes into walls, pulling John from the brink, and giving him a chance at payback that eased the anguish enough to keep him from becoming a basket case. And he never killed for revenge. Oh no. One must never do that, because one must never become the thing they hate, or darkness comes full circle with John being the bastard dishing out the agony.

But there were breaking points, and that's what made John shrink shivering further into the fetal position.

It also had him realizing that the urine/body oder smell was strongest when laying on the mattress. But, hey, at least he had a mattress. Chances were, infections from beatings would get him long before whatever germs were crawling on this mattress did.

A high pitched whine, like hinges in need of a can of WD-40, pierced the silence and John's ears far louder than it should have. He snapped his head up to the door and lifted both eyebrows in wary curiosity. His door had opened, just a fraction as though it hadn't been shut properly and a small breeze had nudged it inward. John stared at it, decreasing his breathing, with nerves singing and muscles quivering. But no one shoved the door the rest of the way open with a bang to come stomping in. No burly guards to drag him away, no haughty figure to taunt him before the torture. Just a door teasing him with possible freedom, like a snake hypnotizing the mouse before the strike.

John had been trying to avoid the mouse analogy. It was bad enough with the glorified guinea pig metaphor McKay was so fond of using.

John waited another ten heartbeats before finally rising to slip from the bed and creep in a crouch with back curved and leg muscles bunched for either a charge forward in a tackle or leap back in alarm. On reaching the barrier, he hunkered down beside it, and gingerly moved his head around to peer out. He looked left, right, up, down, then down again on a double take on seeing a tin plate holding a crust of bread and a tin cup of water within easy reach just outside the threshold. Too easy reach, and John didn't like that. Thoughts of tainted food and tainted drink screamed in his mind. Hunger screamed back, wide and yawning like a bottomless pit in the base of his stomach, snarling to be filled in. Thirst had his tongue fusing to the roof of his mouth.

A measly crust of bread and a stupid cup of water - might as well be the instigators to the downfall of societies with the potency they carried. Leave the food, wait the tormentors out, and be drug free when rescued. Considering if a rescue was being mounted, which John did consider since he would have been dead a long time ago if it hadn't been for his team. So, in better consideration, if this place could even be found. Most rescue efforts always cut it close thanks to the prisons being in some obscure location. In which case, John will have either starved to death, or be so weak from hunger that drugs wouldn't be needed. Captors were always slick that way. Option two was a no-brainer – take the food, get doped up, get it all over with – unless his team had a location after all and were heading over even now.

And that's why a crust of bread and cup of water were always such a pain in the ass. Too many possibilities when all John wanted to do was end his hunger and thirst. John licked dry, cracked lips, watching the food as though it were an iratus bug waiting to jump, but interchanging with longing to get his stomach to shut up already. Indecision, fatigue, and fear increased John's trembling along with his heart rate. He did another nervous search of the empty hallway, lingering his sights on the doors hiding unimaginable surprises he would regret being surprised by.

Mind games were just as much a torture tactic (probably the most favorite) as physical torment, and one way or another, something bad was bound to happen eventually, so it was always best just to get it over with and deny his captors the satisfaction of watching him squirm.

" The hell with it," he mumbled, and leaned around the door to snatch the plate and cup quick as a mouse jumping back from the striking snake. He placed the cup beside him, then took the bread from the plate and stuck the plate between the door and the jam for future access. Scooting back, John took the water and downed it all in several gulps, then devoured the bread as though someone would take it away if he didn't finish it fast. It didn't fill him, not that he expected it to, but the pit was less bottomless and more like a really deep pot hole. Good enough. What was even better was now he had his voice back. He crawled back to the door, still keeping behind it, and peered around out into the dimly lit hall.

" Hello?" His voice echoed sharp and brief, and he winced. Silence answered him, still suffocatingly thick.

" Hello!" He tried again when no one burly or inhuman came barreling around the corner. " McKay? Teyla? Ronon? Anyone?"

Silence refused to budge.

" McKay! Teyla! Ronon!"

Still nothing, but John wasn't naïve to go sighing in relief about it. And neither was he stupid as to think that the absence of anyone nasty showing up meant it was okay to step out of the cell for a little walk.

Definitely not stupid, but occasionally foolish. If his teammates were still passed out then no amount of calling was going to bring them around. He saw only one other cell that was seemingly occupied, and close enough by for a quick check that didn't involve an escape attempt to be used to against him. So John made sure the tin plate remained positioned as a door stop should the doors work by remote. He gripped the edge of the door, shifting into position for a mad dash, then flung the door open and ran out to the cell diagonal to him. He skidded to a stop before colliding into the door, then jumped up, gripping the bars and pulling himself enough to see into the room.

Only to see nothing but another bed and dingy walls. He twisted himself, angling himself to snatch a glance at the darkened corners. Still nothing.

John's body flooded with ice. " Ah crap."

A gutteral, throaty kind of purr resounded toward him from somewhere beyond the bend in the hall. John's head turned hesitantly toward the sound, and his heart could have broke a rib the way that it slammed. A shadow filled the wall where the corridor turned, and kept growing, something clacking and scratching on the tiled floor.

" Idiot!" John snarled to himself. He dropped to the floor, stumbling and scrambling back to his cell. Once inside he did another skidding stop to kick the plate away, then slammed his body into the door that banged shut like an explosion. He pressed against it with the throaty purr rhythmic like breathing getting closer. John instinctively stepped back from the door, only to slam against it again when it started inching open.

The clacking stopped outside his door. John closed his eyes.

" No, no, no, no, no, no..." Torture he would take, a quick death with a bullet to the brain he could handle, but the idea of dieing being torn apart by a ravenous monster was a way to go he'd rather avoid. Too slow and too painful.

There was a snort. " Hmph. Took you long enough to awake." The voice was unmistakably female, with an echoing quality to it like the voice of a female wraith, but heavy on the bored sarcasm, something a wraith could never pull off.

John tilted his head back to look up at the small window, and looking back down at him was a large, almond shaped eye solid blue without iris or pupil, surrounded by midnight black, leathery flesh with strands of wiry gray hair trailing across it. It narrowed at John, and there came another snort.

" Move," the female... _thing_... snapped. John felt the door shift toward open. He pushed away from it and scuttled back, around the bed to the back wall. The door swung open with a protesting whine. What entered was... disturbing, to say the least, causing John's stomach to clench nauseatingly.

The black, leathery skin was like a mask pulled and stretched over the elongated skull with a lipless, narrow snout, like a cheap, quick way to cover the bones. That emaciated head should had been a contrast to the rest of the body rippling with ropey, sinewy muscles, but the size made up for it. The head lifted on a long, curving neck to look down on John. Muscles quivered, vibrating the mane of long, limp gray hair starting from the top of the skull and extending to the base of the neck, so long that even with the head lifted it was only inches away from brushing the floor. Its limbs were long, with the forelegs longer and thinner than the powerful hind legs, like bat arms; which made sense since they appeared to be sporting the same style of wing membrane folded tight against the arms. The tail curled at the feet looked as though it would be the same length as the hind legs.

Bat body, dragon neck, and horse skull-head with mane; John's second reaction was for his heart to sink at the thought of _genetic manipulation_. He honestly didn't think he'd be able to handle any more Frankenstein spawn and their patchwork children anymore.

John pressed his back into the wall. Experience had him already knowing this creature had no intention of taking his head off – yet - but experience wasn't keeping him from reacting out of instinctual fear. The creature reminded him of a wraith; had the iratus bugs made a DNA cocktail with an animal rather than an Ancient.

The creature snaked it's neck out to bring its bony face in close to John's. It puffed out a breath of air through the long slits of its nostrils, its permanently bared teeth almost transparent up close, as though formed from glass. Thin eyelids blinked over the solid blue eyes that regarded Sheppard in tired interest, then the head snaked away.

" Follow me," came the echoing female voice. " And I suggest you comply since I really don't think you'd enjoy being carried. I know I wouldn't enjoy carrying you." With that flatly stated, the creature turned and slipped from the cell moving with ribbony grace that would make a cat jealous. Having no intentions of letting that wraith simile carrying him, John followed. It turned right toward the massive wooden doors and shoved them open by butting its head into them. The doors opened onto a metal platform with a rusty, grated floor. Turning right again, the thing practically slid up metal stairs that creaked, moaned and rang.

Stepping out onto the platform was also stepping into an endless stairwell with walls lined by stairs and platforms, all leading up, with none leading down from the platform where John stood. All John could see beneath him was endless black, and all he could see above was more black but offset by the stairs and landings. With a shudder, he followed the creature to the next platform, then to the next, three platforms up until they finally came to one with a solid metal door, no window. The creature wrapped its wing claw around the handle and yanked it open, revealing an endless corridor with boarded up, narrow arched windows on one side,and a blank stretch of wall on the other. The creature led him through the barely lit hall thick with shadows, following the yawning darkness that always stayed ahead of them. They passed a single wooden door, then several yards later another door, and the hall kept going like a bad dream.

The doors were nothing really remarkable, all clones of eachother, probably leading to easy to forget rooms that were either full of junk or nothing at all. Or at least that was the impression John got. It was the fifth door that had him twisting his head around wanting a better look. It was another of solid metal, large, dented, and smeared with rust.

Except rust usually drips or flecks, not smears, and not form patterns remarkably similar to handprints and claw marks. Dents bulged out from the door as though a massive sledge hammer had been taken to it from the inside. Again, John couldn't suppress a shudder.

Curiosity compelled him to ask about it, but dread shut him up.

Two more doors later and they came to a set of double doors that the creature head-butted open. Walking in, John was met with the sight of a large chamber like a massive dining hall and sitting room rolled into one. Dominating the center was a long table of dark brown wood, intricately carved, along with red padded chairs surrounding it. It sat on a massive ornate carpet of blue, violet, and red in swirling, curved designs. On either side of the chamber were high bookshelves packed with books, and massive round rugs where easy chairs of what John guessed to be maroon leather – four in all – surrounded small coffee tables (or whatever people of this world drank when reading.) On the other side of the dining table was a huge fireplace with a wide mantle held up by kneeling statues with human figures but heads similar to the creature's. Above the mantle was a mirror, a dingy mirror that barely reflected anything.

It would have been quite the cozy, opulent setting had there been a fire going, and if everything say for certain dining chairs and spots on the table wasn't covered in a thick layer of dust. The padding of the chairs and easy chairs were cracked, frayed, split, spilling out off-white padding like guts. The carpets and padding were dulled with dust and age, the stone floors beneath cracked and textured from wear. The creature's claws clacked until it stepped onto the thick rug, moving around the table to the other side where it sat back on its haunches to pull out a chair. It then pointed its wingclaw straight down.

" Sit," she ordered.

John was quite ready to retort about not being critter-chick's lapdog, but thought it best to bite his tongue until the full severity of the situation made itself known. Sheppard moved to the chair and dropped himself into it, raising a small cloud of dust that had him coughing. The creature moved off to the side on Sheppard's left, just at the end of the table, and sat back like a well-trained Doberman.

For being dusty and cracked, the chair wasn't all that bad to sit in. John let himself slouch into it with arms folded across his chest. Seconds ticked by like minutes, and John felt himself begin to fidget with unease. He glanced at the creature, stoic and still as a statue.

" So, uh..." he began, and when the creature didn't retaliate at the sound of his voice, felt it safe to continue. " You, uh, got a name?"

" Alasia," she promptly replied in that same flat tone.

John nodded thoughtfully. " Alasia. Pretty. So, um, what can I expect here, Alasia? Torture, blackmail, bad food...?"

Alasia twitched her head to look at John askance. " Ient's yet to have a reason for blackmail. Torture depends on what he has in mind this time around." She said the last part rather caustically, ending with a half-snort, half-laugh. " He jumps into the projects these days and isn't keen on taking the time to map them out before hand."

Now John was squirming. " Projects?"

" Are you deaf? Yes, projects. I'm assuming he's finished his last seeing as he wanted me to bring you up as soon as possible. Must be another long one seeing as how he hasn't pulled in a sentient being for months. And I'm warning you now, you're probably not going to like whatever he's got in store for you. I've yet to meet anyone who's all smiles about Ient's projects. Well, the mad ones but it's not as though they can tell their nose from their backside anyways. Idiots even die with a smile on their face. Painful one but still a smile." Alasia's entire body shivered, and she shook in a rustle of wiry mane to clear it.

John gulped, going tense as a fiddle string and fighting to maintain his appearance of nonchalance. He was nervous verging on scared, but refused to be scared yet. He could handle this, he knew he could. Mad scientists were a regular occurrence for him – McKay for example, though he had a knack for descending out of his God-like complex from time to time. Normally pissing him off helped, as it helped with every other mad scientist John had the misfortune to run across. Usually long after the fact and the pain, though.

John wasn't fooling himself, he _was_ scared. He had it up to the stratosphere with mad scientists, but those same scientists were good at keeping John from doing anything about it, mostly because they kept him guessing on what dastardly plan involving twisting nature they had next. Plus they didn't care. At least with enemies like the Genii and the wraith, John had a chance to ascertain his enemies, especially since reasons for killing him were narrowed down to either vengeance or hunger. Scientists were neither vengeful or hungry, just obsessive, and obsessions could grow to be quite unhealthy, especially for the test subject.

" So I guess it's pointless to ask what Ient has in store for me?"

" If you're asking me, then yes. Although I doubt even Ient will answer you. Always busy, busy, busy that Ient." Again, John noted a hint of bitterness to her words. Possible ally, that Alasia, but John was careful to store that notion into his mental file of possibilities only. It would be worth a try to do a little digging into this bitterness, but he wasn't going to rest all hope on it. Not if something simpler presented itself. Still, it was a start.

" So," John said to start the digging off. " What does your kind call themselves?"

Alasia snorted, hissing out a sardonic chuckle, then glaring at John.

" Incarcerated," she snarled.

 _What the hell's that supposed to mean?_ But John didn't press. Nothing like prodding the grouchy lion with a stick to get it ripping one's own head off sooner than later.

John settled deeper into his chair, even with all comfort lost. His heart was going at a runner's rate, and sweat was tickling over his ribs and down his spine, soaking into the thin scrub and making him twitch with shivers. Minutes past, building up toward an hour. John crossed one bare ankle over the other and began twitching his foot to ease some of the agitation from his body.

Making him sweat and making him wait; simplest torture tactic of them all, if John were actually being tortured. Maybe this was all a part of Ient's project to see how he would react to long, arduous, pointless waiting.

He was proved wrong when the door burst open and a figure a foot taller than John hidden head to toe in a thick, heavy but fading dark blue robe with a massively large cowl strode in, slow but purposeful. Perhaps it was the robe's thickness adding on the bulk, but the figure was impressively built, like a wrestler, making John feeling positively scrawny with the figure still several feet away.

" Ient, I presume?" John said, already too tense to tense any further. Alasia rose to move just behind John. The figure approached the table, and lifted pale, clawed hands to the cowl, hands that looked unnervingly familiar. The figure brushed back the cowl with a flick of its wrists, and the sight of the face had John jumping from his seat and attempting to back away, only to be halted by Alasia's wing claws on both his shoulders. Even knowing what Alasia was, he still shrank back against her chest, shaking hard.

" Oh hell, no, no freakin' way!"

The wraith smiled baring a mouthful of small, sharp teeth. Slitted eyes flicked up and down John's body as the wraith moved around the table deliberately, savoring its approach toward its terrified prey. John's breathing labored as fast as his heart. He tried to jerk from Alasia's grip, which had her curling her claws to prick him just below the collar bones.

The wraith neared, and reached out with its feeding hand.

" No!" John screamed, jerking, writhing, then trying to kick at the wraith. Alasia dug her claws in sharper until blood was drawn. She pulled him back hard, distracting him enough for the wraith's hand to move in toward his chest... and veer to his shoulder. The wraith then proceeded to squeeze John's shoulder, then down his arm. Taking John's wrist, he pulled him forward from Alasia's grasp. Still hanging on, he felt John's forehead with the back of his hand. After that, he lifted the scrub shirt, looking John over again, then leaning in to place his cold ear against John's chest.

" Heart rate high but not unexpected," the wraith said. He pulled his head away, and still keeping the shirt lifted, turned Sheppard around. John cringed when he felt the cold, clawed hands groping along his spine. He looked at Alasia, asking with his eyes what the hell was going on. Alasia answered him with a roll of her own blue orbs as though to say 'humiliating, isn't it.'

 _More like creepy._

When the wraith finished feeling John up like a butcher examining the quality of a side of beef, it lowered the scrub shirt, took John by both shoulders, and spun him around. The wraith then stepped back with hand to chin, looking humanly thoughtful.

" Scrawny," he stated, driving back enough of John's terrified confusion to prickle with slight irritation.

" But in good physical condition," it went on to say. " Excellent muscle tone and posture, no back problems like the last one." It nodded, then smiled. " This could work. Blood samples first, though."

The wraith – Ient, John was safe to assume – pulled a small metal box from his robe and set it on the table. Opening, inside were syringes, small squares of cloth, and a small metal bottle of something. Ient poured that _something_ onto the cloth, and taking Sheppard's wrist, pulling his arm straight, wiped the stuff on the crook of his arm. It then grabbed a syringe, plunged it in, and pulled out some of Sheppard's blood. It then grabbed another needle, taking out another small pint, then a third.

" Geez, Dracula, save some for me." John couldn't help it. He was officially freaked out enough to feel justified to say whatever the hell he wanted. Ient didn't respond. He placed the filled needles back in the case and closed it with a snap.

" You're a spirited one," Ient said at last, looking back to Sheppard. " No one has ever spoken on the first meeting."

John met the wraith's gaze, pouring out his suspicion, mistrust, and loathing. " Probably because they're too busy wondering when you're gonna eat them."

Ient smiled his ghastly wraith smile. " Which is why I don't hold it against them. Needless to say the temptation to feed is there, but it is counterproductive, and I prefer meals that do not fight back. I admire you already Mr..."

" Lt. Colonel John Sheppard United States Air Force."

Ient's brow lifted. " My, that is quite a name."

Focusing on his loathing, John smirked. " I'd let you call me John, but I don't get personal with wraith. Colonel or Sheppard, take your pick."

Ient lifted his chin, still grinning like a death's head. " Mr... Sheppard then. I admire you already Mr. Sheppard. Your resolve, courage, though the scent of fear is strong on you, and your heart beats loud. I imagine you will be trouble for me."

" It's a proven fact I tend to be trouble for anyone. Just ask a few of your wraith pals. They'll vouch."

Ient's chest jerked in a breathy chuckle. " My brothers and I... are not on common ground. So I will take your word for it. No matter though, easily dealt with. Alasia, deliver his rations only once a day, water twice to play it safe. I wish him subdued, not dead."

" Yes, Ient."

Ient turned and started striding away, grabbing the metal box and slipping it back into his robe pocket. " I am finished with him for today. Return him to his cell. When finished, return Meyon to her cell as well. She needs to rest."

" Yes Ient," Alasia answered. She started head butting John in the back to get him moving. John complied like an automaton, being too numb with shock to act in any other way. He was supposed to be dead, plain and simple... and when did wraith start using names for themselves? The name thing struck John as being far more odd than him being alive. His brain contributed his continuing existence to the fact that wraith liked to play with their food before snacking. But the name thing John couldn't digest.

Back out of the dining/reading hall, back down the rickety metal stairs that creaked and rang loud over the abyss, and back into the cell block to be head butted back into his cell. The door whine shut behind him, just as he snapped from his stupor to whirl around.

" Alasia, wait!"

The cell door clunked loudly. " What?" Alasia snapped.

John's mouth worked without any words forming. So many questions were packed into his mind that he couldn't sift through them properly to find one to start with. The one question that finally did squeeze through his addled brain made him want to kick himself.

" What's going on!"

Silence, then a snort. " Your door is not locked, so you may move about if you wish for exercise purposes. I suggest you take advantage of it before Meyon returns. She's at her most cranky after her sessions."

John heard the clacking of claws, then the groan of a door, followed by the thunder of it being slammed shut. John remained glued to the spot, staring at the cell door that slowly inched back open.

Then John backed up until his legs met the bed, and he dropped himself down on the edge. But he didn't remain there long. Given the opportunity to explore, he might as well take it. Better than giving his thoughts free reign to start tearing him apart.

SGA

Grass and twigs crunched under Rodney's booted feet. He skirted around the ruins with careful steps in case what he was looking for was literally right under his nose. The young marine beside him didn't hold as much regard to what could be underfoot as the physicist. His attention was on their surroundings, left, right, up but never down. Of course never down since most danger in the Pegasus Galaxy came from above. But what was an alien galaxy without a few surprises?

" You really should consider watching where you step," Rodney mumbled. " Since we've yet to determine how Colonel Sheppard vanished, the very act of breathing could have any one of us vanishing into thin air. Though we're more likely to step on something that could have us disintegrated."

The marine gave Rodney a heavy-lidded look, but still didn't include the ground in his scrutiny.

 _Ah, the naivety of youth. Idiot._

With each crumbling edifice they passed with the largest only coming a little passed Rodney's head, Rodney would pass his scanner over it, then along the ground. The area where he'd last seen Sheppard step was behind one of these taller structures. Stepped in but didn't step out. Rodney had seen the stepping in part, only to become distracted by a massive energy fluctuation that swiftly declined, then vanished. It was after calling for Sheppard and not seeing him emerge that had gotten Rodney's heart to cram into his own throat.

His heart was still in his throat even with this being day two of the search. Since yesterday's search didn't involve any more disappearances, Weir had stamped her approval on Rodney bringing in more scientists to expand the search, each with a soldier assigned to them like a shadow. As Rodney rounded the structure, he passed Zelenka rounding another nearby structure.

" Anything yet?" Rodney asked without looking up.

" Rock, grass, and more rock," Zelenka replied. " No energy readings."

A thousand possibilities for this now lack of fluctuation raced through Rodney's mind. Perhaps it had been a one time thing. Perhaps it was seasonal, or only came about during certain times of the day, or had been remote controlled... or had been some sort of land mine after all and Sheppard was nothing more than atom particles floating through the air. Rodney, however, refused to give into the latter mode of thinking. Sheppard was too much of a phoenix to be passed off as dead.

Although Rodney had never denied that the day might come...

No, he would give Sheppard the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

Rodney paused , looking up. _Wow, so this is what it's like to think positive._ Except it wasn't really thinking positive, just handling the situation one step at a time. He wouldn't call it denial, just procrastination until he had no choice but to except that Sheppard, this time around, might really be gone.

One step at a time though.

The search dragged on through the day, into the waning light as the blazingly white sun made its decent toward the horizon. Rodney wasn't ready to call it quits, but Major Lorne was, what with this being an unknown planet with unknown dangers that could very well prefer the dark. He called a halt to the rescue and had everyone gather in the center of the ruins for a head count.

Rodney would have protested quitting with enough light left to see the silhouettes of the structures, but his mind had zipped off to other matters, namely setting up up scanners throughout the structures, maybe on tripods or sticking them to the walls, to record any energy readings that might pop up during the night.

" Spread them around," he told Zelenka as they headed to the center of the ruins. " Within the area and outside it. With so many scans going at once we should get better readings and therefore a better idea of what we're dealing with."

" Has doctor Weir given consideration to having a few stay behind to catch sight of what created this anomaly?" Radek asked.

Rodney set his mouth in a straight line and shook his head. " No. Until we know more, it's too dangerous. To which... I suppose... she has a point."

Zelenka lifted his brow. " I must say you are taking this quite well. Normally you are more..." Radek waved his hand in a circular motion through the air. " What is the word... _Obsessed_ , about such matters."

Rodney shrugged. " Blame Sheppard. I think his disappearing acts are starting to desensitize me. Besides, you know Colonel Sheppard. The man's like a jack in the box. Even with the music you never expect the jack to pop up. Same with Sheppard. He makes good on those last minute reentries. Either that or it's us being the ones to pull him out of some hole or prison."

" Yes, but never in a pleasant state. Returning in body is all well and good, but there are times when I wonder what it must do to his mental state. He has survived many strange... uh, mishaps, many of which have nearly killed him. I do not doubt that he could return, but it is his manner of return that is cause for worry."

Radek would have had Rodney there, except Rodney was fifty miles ahead of the Czek in that line of thinking.

Rodney had perfected his mask of outer calm, because inside he was raging with panic, and for the very reasons Zelenka had just mentioned. It was the what ifs that were killing Rodney. What if, while the rest of Atlantis slept in warm beds, Sheppard was out there somewhere freezing to death, or starving, or getting eaten by wild animals. What if he was being tortured, mutilated, turned mentally upside down and inside out. Wouldn't be the first time.

What if he couldn't take it any more?

Rodney's fingers twitched; a tick that had formed the other day after the first search for the energy fluctuation. Although at the time it had only been his pinky finger moving against Rodney's will. Today, pinky, middle, and thumb.

Once reaching the middle of the structures, Lorne did a roll call, checked off names, then bellowed the orders to head back to the jumpers. Once piled inside the three ships, the jumpers rose and positioned themselves single file on heading back to the gate. Heavy twilight had covered the land in thick shadows, stretching to the horizon with darkness halting abruptly to give way to blazing yellow, orange, pink, and violet fading into starry night. The lead jumper dialed the gate, and the event horizon exploded outward, then inward, to cast shimmering, dancing light on the ink dark ground. The jumpers entered, zipping through the wormhole, and slipping out gently on the other side to rise into the jumper bay.

On stepping out, Rodney was met by Dr. Weir and several breathless, wide eyed, and smiling scientists. The looks on their faces had Rodney halting on the ramp.

" Please tell me you found something related to finding Sheppard. Because if you didn't then I already don't care..."

" One of the jumpers doing a planet wide search found something," Weir said, stiff with agitation, but tempered enough not to be smiling and giving into what could be false hope. " It's in the lab. I didn't want anyone one touching it until you returned."

Gaping, Rodney nearly stumbled hurrying off the ramp. " Why didn't you alert us?"

" They brought it in only thirty minutes ago and we didn't want to call you back if you'd found something yourselves," Weir explained as they started off for the lab, Zelenka, Ronon, Teyla, and several other scientists following. They moved quick through the halls, Rodney trying not to break into a run. On entering the lab, a gaggle of scientists quickly parted from around the object they'd been huddled over like vultures.

The device on the table was round and large, about the size of a jumper pod, give or take, covered in blunt ended spikes and circular blue crystal plates. Rodney's first thought was how the hell they got the massive thing into the lab. He got his answer when the table was bumped, and the thing started rocking as though it had been shoved. Probably weighed about as much as Styrofoam.

Rodney went straight to it and looked it over. " Seems to be wraith in design."

A tall, thin balding man – Dr. Fredricks – nodded, then pointed to one of the blue crystal face plates. " We confirmed it when we noticed writing around the edges of these panels. Wraith language we're still trying to translate. The jumper picked up a small energy reading that led us straight to the thing. We found it darting over a forest, but it immediately changed course to come straight at us when we landed. It didn't really do anything at first, just do that darting thing around us for a minute before Lt. Micheals stunned it."

Rodney looked at Fredrick's in alarm. " He stunned it? How many times? Until it sparked and died?"

Fredrick's swallowed nervously. " Just once. B-but it's still working. You can feel it vibrating. We think it just needs a moment to reboot."

Rodney nodded, his shock forgotten. " Then we'd better get to know this thing to make sure it doesn't want to self destruct and take us all with it. I suggest massive precaution, namely keeping this thing from leaving the room. So we'll need stunners and lots of them. Oh, and I suggest putting the city on lock down. Don't want anyone accidentally opening a door in case this thing wants to take a stroll."

Weir nodded. " Agreed. Anything else?"

Rodney grimaced, then looked at Elizabeth. " Personal shield would be nice if we've got a few extra."

SGA

John's cell block was nothing even close to spectacular. Around the bend were more cells, all empty, and around the next bend more cells and a blank wall of block stone. Empty... empty, empty, empty. John tried the door at his end of anti-paradise, but it was bolted tight and hardly budged. He kicked it in frustration, which is always a bad idea, and now suffered the pain of a bruised toe.

With nothing left to do and see, John and dragged his now heavily depressed carcass to his cell and foul smelling mattress. He curled up on his side and forced his brain to focus on possible escapes rather than his predicament. He didn't have much intel to go on except for the obvious telling him that he was screwed. Even if Ient didn't eat him, John had no doubts that the wraith mad scientist was going to make his life a living hell to the point of wishing he were dead. Wraith were beautifully adept at making their victims pray for death.

Alasia John wasn't certain about. Her bitterness toward Ient he kept in mind, but for all he knew Alasia was bitter in general, and could be a sadist who liked to watch others suffer as a way to vent for all John knew. People, creatures, whatever, could be multifaceted that way. Still, this was only day one of him being awake and taking in his surroundings. As long as Ient's plans for him didn't involve John dead by sunup, then John still had time to observe and discover something that could be taken advantage of.

Either that, or buy time enough for him to get rescued.

 _If rescue is possible_. John just didn't know enough as of yet to be hopeful. But holding back on hope left too much room for fear, and the unknown was feeding it. Thus far, the only wraith scientist he'd ever heard of had been working on a way to make humans more tasty. So what did that leave for a wraith reject shunned by his own kind? Perfecting the last wraith scientist's genetic spaghetti sauce to win back his brethren's love?

John closed his eyes and let out a quavering breath. Too much of the unknown, too many what ifs. And John was hungry again with that cold bottomless pit gaping open at the bottom of his stomach. His thoughts meandered toward food – steaks, eggs, ice-cream, turkey sandwiches. Even MREs and Powerbars were making his mouth water. Wouldn't McKay and Ronon be proud. Their twiggy friend was all prepped and ready to eat anything and everything. He only hoped Ient wasn't going through similar hunger pains.

Flashes of food gave way to a single image of McKay and Ronon sitting across a mess hall table from John, shoving a tray with a turkey sandwich and potato chips toward him. But when John tried to grab the sandwich, his hands past straight through. Ronon and Rodney laughed.

" Apparently he doesn't want it bad enough," Rodney said, and pulled the tray away.

John looked from the tray to Rodeny desperately. " Yes I do!" He made a lunge for the food, but his hands passed through again. Then, suddenly, he was grabbed by the back of his shirt and lifted from his chair to be slammed into the floor at Ient's feet. John looked to Rodney and Ronon for help, but they were too busy pounding the table in a mad fit of laughter.

Ient crouched beside John. " Scrawney," he said, then smiled baring his mouth full of small, sharp teeth. " But he will do." He ripped John's shirt, exposing his chest, then slammed his feeding hand right into Sheppard's sternum.

John gasped and snapped his eyes open, panting and shivering, his hand going straight to his chest still covered by the thin shirt and unmarred flesh. Feeling no wound or wrinkled skin, John sighed out in relief. He lay on the putrid bed breathing through his mouth until his heart rate descended, feeling it do so with his hand still on his chest. Sweat covered his skin and soaked into his clothes, making him shiver from cold more than nerves. He lifted his head to look at the cell door, still stubbornly remaining open at an inch.

In the thick silence, he caught a sound, a strange, breathy sound that pulled him from the bed to the cell door. Peeking through the small gap, he saw no sign of Alasia, no shadow or hint of mane or leathery skin. He pulled the door open enough to stick his head out and strain his hearing into the silence.

The noise was coming from his left, a kind of whimpering, or maybe weeping. Either way, the voice sounded human or at least human like.

Curiosity and solitude compelled John to check it out. And since the sound seemed to be coming from the lighted cell, he saw no real harm in it. He shoved his own cell door open enough to slip out without causing it to whine and startle whoever was in the adjacent cell. He crept to the cell for the same reason, and straightened to stand on tip-toe and peer though the barred window.

A figure was huddled at the foot of the bed, wearing what looked to be a thin, plain brown dress with a darker brown scarf covering the head like a hood. The body twitched and jerked with quiet, shuddering sobs that sounded somewhat strange, almost musical, not quite real, and that was what kept John from alerting the figure to his presence.

But he wanted to alert, not so much because the figure screamed poor pauper damsel in distress, but simply out of sheer longing to hear another human voice and see another human face.

 _Wait, didn't Alasia mention something about a Meyon?_ Meyon, who was cranky, or something like that. Was this Meyon? And how much of a threat could she be when cranky behind a cell door.

Meyon or whoever this was suddenly stopped crying and lifted her head without turning it. John flinched, almost pulling back, but forced himself to stay put in hopes of seeing Meyon's face – a human face, psychotic, cranky, or otherwise.

Meyon's head moved like a cat following a spiraling dust mote. Then, suddenly, she whipped her head around to look directly at John.

John's blood turned to veins of ice. That was no human face, or anything John would call a living being for that matter.

Two points of blue light flared like azure fire from the slitted sockets of a dark gray metal skull, dented and spotted in rust. Instead of flat human teeth, the skull grin bared needle sharp fangs that made wraith teeth look like push pins. The jaws parted in a shriek of metal that melded into an inhuman vocal shriek, piercing and vicious, sending a shock of cold racing down John's spine. The metal creature moved fast as a whip, bunching together then lunging at the cell door with fanged jaws gaping and flaming blue eyes burning.

John screamed in terror and leaped back just as the creature impacted; with the door flying open and smashing into the wall, the creature clinging to with it seven inch long fingers narrowing at the tips into claws. The skull head swiveled around on its metal neck, and hissed.

John's terror didn't allow him to get back to his feet. He scrabbled backward, falling, then turning enough to bolt into his own cell, falling again onto his chest with mind enough to kick out with his leg and slam the door shut, only to have the creature slam into it and send a shockwave of pain up John's leg. He shoved again, but the creature shoved back, enough to slip its bony arm through and grab his ankle with its clawed hand. It then pulled him away as though he weighed little more than straw, allowing the thing to open the door the rest of the way and start pulling John out. John stretched both his arms out in time to grab the legs of the bed, only to have it pulled along with him. Without really thinking about it, he snapped his body around from front to back, bringing up his other leg and striking the metal creature across its metal jaw.

The skull head barely twitched, but the pain tearing through John's foot and up his leg wouldn't let him hold back a scream. He tried, and it ripped from his throat all the same. He attempted to bring his leg to his chest and grab his foot, but in the process had it tugged back by the creature. The creature, moving seamlessly on all fours, crept like a prowling panther into John's cell, coming up on his left side. Once there, it sat back on its haunches, and wrapped one claw around John's throat to pin him in place. It didn't look at John's face. It's focus was on his chest, with his jaws wide and its eyes small pinpoints of blue.

It turned its head and lowered it to rest on John's chest, right over his psychotically hammering heart. Its other hand it placed beside its head with the tips of each claw resting on the bars of John's ribcage. The sharp pin pricks against the flesh made John's stomach coil and shrink, and his breaths turn uneven and unsteady. John closed his eyes, preferring not having to see along with feeling. He waited for the claws to puncture and snap his ribs like splintered wood, waited for the left clawed hand to squeeze until his neck snapped, or for the metal fangs to tear into his throat. He waited, and tears stung his eyes with the agony that wait was causing.

One claw began tapping on one rib to the rhythm and pace of John's heart.

" So fast," the thing breathed in a lilting, echoing voice, like a female wraith, ending with a drawn out sigh of contentment. " So strong. I have not heard it's music for countless ages. It is sooooo beautiful." She sounded as though she were about to weep. " Sooooo... delectable. Your life would taste sweet to me, like my first kill. It would linger, sustain me, if I could just have – one – taste..."

The claws against his flank shuddered until the pressure increased, piercing cloth and flesh to scrap against the bones. John's breath caught in his throat, and the tears slid from his eyes. He had to clamp his jaw shut to keep from screaming, which would send the creature into a rage, of that John was sure.

" I'm so hungry," the creature whimpered. " Just a taste, one taste."

John felt the weight of the head lift away, then cringed at cool metal against his cheek, wiping a tear away. " Look at me, my dish."

Gulping, John squeezed his eyes shut tighter, until the tip of one of the claws wrapped around his throat touched the skin over his jugular.

" I said look at me!" the creature snarled. John pried his eyelids apart and looked up into the pin hole blue dots of light from deep within the slitted sockets. The jaws parted in the grotesque equivalent of a smile.

" You are trembling, my dish," it said. It brought its face in close to John's. " I like fear. It taste so sweet."

John curled his lip in a sneer. " Kind of hard to taste anything with no tongue, isn't it? Bet that's nothing but a recording I'm hearing. You probably say the same thing to all the guys you eat."

The eyes flared, and the creature gasped. " Defiance!" then the eyes shrank. " Even more delectable."

The creature lifted her face away, then her hand from John's throat. With one effortless tug, she ripped the front of John's shirt to expose his chest. Carefully, as though relishing the movement, she placed her cold metal hand on his chest with fingers spread and claw tips pointed at his collar bones and throat. The metal creature stared at the hand, and gradually its body began to shudder, the eye lights growing brighter and brighter until they filled the sockets. The hand pressed harder into John's chest against his sternum until his ribs creaked and his lungs had no room to expand. The hand shook like the body, and the claws curled just below the collar bones. In the speed of an eye blink, the creature raked John across the chest. John screamed, which was cut off abruptly by a strike across the face hard enough for stars to erupt and have him hovering on the edge of blacking out, but not hard enough to send him into blessed oblivion.

" Silence!" the creature shrieked. " You will be silent human! I will have you! I will! I will taste your fear, I will taste your defiance! I will, I will, I will! I will rip out your heart and devour it...!" and so saying, lifted her claws in ready to bring it down on John's chest.

Only to have her metal wrist grabbed and her metal body torn away to be dragged kicking, writhing, and leaping about like a pissed off wild cat.

John was free, so he took the opportunity to scrabble back into the shadowed corner, huddled and trembling like a terrified child, with both arms wrapped around his bleeding chest, and drawn up legs pressed against his arms. The creature's shrieks of rage were constant, and John barely caught the report of a cell door banging shut on squeaking hinges. Fifteen rapid heartbeats later, Alasia entered John's cell.

" You're fortunate you're both so loud," she said. " Or I would have never known to come."

John wanted to spout the usual questions – what was that? Why did it try to eat me? And so on, but his throat seemed to have closed up. And even if it hadn't, John's breathing wouldn't slow enough to allow him to form words.

Alasia moved closer, and John shrank further back.

" Did she hurt you?" the beast asked, monotone. " Come on, let me see." Along with not being able to talk, John was finding it difficult to move. It took effort for him to lower his legs enough, then move his arms enough, for Alasia to see.

The claw marks went the length of John's sternum, coating his chest with blood that was already soaking into his ripped shirt. Outside the cell, the metal creature shrieked and hammered against the door with each resounding thud making John flinch.

" Wait here," Alasia said. " I need to clean you up."

John almost begged her not to go. The metal creature seemed to be increasing its efforts, and began calling out to John.

" I will taste you, my dish! I will taste you...!"

John would have puked had he had anything in his stomach to puke. Alasia came back several agonizingly long minutes later carrying a basket in her mouth containing a large metal box and another shirt. She set the basket down beside her and brought out the box, opening it so that John was unable to see the contents. Taking out a rag, she poured a bottle of clear liquid onto it until it was soaked. She then reached forward and lightly dabbed the cuts. The liquid stung, cold and biting, making John wince and his arms snapping back around his chest. Alasia pried his arms apart using both wing claws, then pinned one arm to the wall with one wing, and the other arm to the wall with her foot. Yet even in that seeming precarious angle, she dealt with the gashes without wavering.

The stinging grew to being unbearable, sending John back into panting, with breath exhaling on a whimper. When the cuts were cleaned, Alasia released John's arms in order to place a large pad of gauze over the wounds that she taped in place with a light gray adhesive. After that, she pulled John's shirt off over his head and handed him the new one.

John just stared at the shirt, then looked up at Alasia preparing to leave. But before departing, she snaked her head around to look back at John.

" Anything else...? Besides food. No meal until tomorrow."

Numbly, John shook his head. " Lock..." he licked suddenly dry lips. " Lock the door."

Alasia snorted like an impatient horse. " I was planning to." Then she left. The cell door thunked closed, and the lock clunked into place.

" Next time," Alasia said, " Don't go near Meyon's cell and she won't know you're here."

Another door thundered close.

John couldn't stop shivering. He rose up, slow, stiff, and unsteady, stumbling his way to the putrid bed, dropping the shirt along the way. Lingering adrenaline gave him strength enough to push the bed against the wall, away from the sight of the window and whatever wanted to take a peek through it. Once against the wall, John pulled his shivering, bruised, and cold body onto the thin mattress where he curled into a tight ball, and promptly leaned to the side to puke up acid.


	2. Part 1

Part Two

Elizabeth took the metallic Atlantis corridors at a brisk, dignified walk masking the agitation that would rather have her going at a run. Her thoughts were a cacophony of reports popping into her head in a timeline semblance of order, interspersed with continuing awe concerning Rodney's multitasking abilities. She had thought him engrossed in the wraith machine from day one, yet he had somehow found the time to initiate another project involving setting up scanners for energy readings at the ruins of RX4-778. He didn't go, just map out the process and the request to send a small science team to do the work. And somewhere in between that, he had Zelenka recalibrate the sensory efficiency of the jumpers to gather readings at a broader range.

And Elizabeth thought she knew how to keep busy.

Rodney's various Sheppard rescue projects had been accomplished within a day. Four days had now passed since finding the wraith device. The reports coming in during that time on the scan results and broad planet searches yielded nothing absolute, but significant discoveries had been made, such as more energy fluctuations that came and went sporadically, plus the sighting (but lack of capture) of another device.

That was all well and good for proving that RX4-778 was hiding a number of little secrets, but that wasn't a result, just a hell of a lot more questions to slap on the list.

Elizabeth's heart was beating fast with the anticipation that Rodney had called her down in order to answer a few of those questions. Actually, she didn't remember the last time it had beat at a regular rate since Sheppard disappeared. The man couldn't take a breath without consequences. Carson quipped about the trouble Sheppard got himself into, but Elizabeth was finding the jokes less and less funny. John had stepped behind a blasted wall! How does that constitute as getting oneself into trouble?

Although if Sheppard's disappearance involved him ending up on a paradise island to return rested and happy, Elizabeth was certain she would kill him, or at least lock him in the brig. But when had Sheppard ever returned all smiles from being taken?

Subconscious memorization brought Elizabeth to the lab without realizing it, and she had to stop and double back when she passed the doors. Walking in, she found Rodney and two other scientists gathered around the device open like a surgery patient with parts spread neat and categorized by number on the table.

" Rodney?" Elizabeth said, folding her arms over her chest out of both habit and impatience. Rodney turned to her, face a little pale, eyes a little darkly circled, and clothes somewhat rumpled. He was smiling triumphantly, as well as wearily, and held up a piece of the device.

" We know what it is."

Elizabeth's muscles eased up on some of her tension. " Finally," she said, and came up beside the physicist to scrutinize the technology as cryptic to her as the Ancient language. Rodney turned as well and began pointing to various areas of the device.

" Here, here, and here is what gave it away. Yes, I know, they mean nothing to you, but they mean a lot to those of us who've had the fortune of being able to tinker with a dart. These are parts normally found in a wraith dart centered around the function of culling beams.

Elizabeth's body quickly reverted back to its original tension. " Culling beam. So then..." Her heart constricted and her stomach knotted.

Rodney nodded soberly. " Exactly. Sheppard was culled. But that's only the half of it. This thing is equipped with the kind of high-functioning surveillance that would have Caldwell slobbering. And I mean video surveillance, infrared, bio-scanners – this thing can detect you from the inside out. Kicker number two; it has an engine rather disturbingly similar to a hyperdrive, like a mini-hyperdrive. It can actually activate while on the planet, which would explain the energy burst then banishment. It's all about seek and retrieve with this puppy. Kicker number three, which I personally see as the big one; the writing around the crystal panels are a warning, against wraith, basically telling them to get lost and that trespassers will be shot."

Elizabeth arched an eyebrow at Rodney. " So it's wraith technology but not wraith friendly." She new better than to give in to hope, but her heart pounded fast all the same.

" It does come as a surprise, but we really shouldn't be all that shocked. It's not like we're the only ones in this galaxy taking whatever technology we can get. Here's kicker number four though; all these are wraith parts, with nothing human integrated into them and nothing Ancient looking about them. Either a hive ship had crash landed and was being kept in mint condition, someone is trading humans for parts, or wraith aren't quite as hive oriented as we thought. But in the long run, all that crap really doesn't matter. What really matters," and Rodney grinned from ear to ear, standing straight with chest out, " is that we can use this thing to find Sheppard."

Now Elizabeth's heart was really going, and she dropped her hands to her side. " How?"

" We put this sucker back together, slap on the strongest tracking device we got, and follow little piggy all the way home. The only set back is that we'll probably only have one chance at this unless we can catch another one of these things. But since we have the means, the only thing we'll be losing is time. Which I'd personally prefer not to, so would rather pull this off the first time around."

Elizabeth nodded rigidly. " Do it."

" Already started."

Elizabeth nearly threw her arms around the man, but restrained herself enough to give him a pat on the shoulder. " Good job Rodney."

Rodney, sobering again, frowned. " Thank me when Sheppard's back." He then turned to continue working.

\-----------

 _Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, na na nana naaa!_

 _Of course I'm scared you stupid brain! Since when do I have to tell myself to grow up?_

John gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and curled tighter on the cesspool scented mattress. A nap would have been quite the blessed respite from his diminishing capacity to think clearly. He really needed McKay. Making fun of himself was no proper way to pass the time.

Sleep was the proper way, but a smidgen out of the question what with Meyon in her cell emitting a sound like nails on a chalkboard, giving John the impression that she was either carving her name into the floor, or trying to dig her way out. Not long now before she started calling to him in that metallic voice of hunger. Always ten minutes after her return, give or take, sometimes less depending on how long she was gone. Sometimes she was quiet for those minutes, sometimes she was weeping, and then she snapped from her fugue and recalled her tender dish existing right across the way – her piece of meat just out of reach.

Not long now. _Five – four – three – I have every right to be scared you jackass!_

" Disssshhhh."

John flinched and cringed with a tightly clamped jaw to prevent the only meal he had keeping him alive from coming back up.

" You will taste so sweet to me. Like my first kill."

Basically, her taunts could be considered scripted they were so repetitive. Didn't make them any less nauseating, and sometimes she came up with lines that made him want to weep in terror.

John heard a hiss.

" I will gut you with your own bones."

Lines like that. Meyon liked to interchange from desperate to wickedly pissed without warning, either because she was indeed unstable, or simply wanted to keep things interesting.

" Your blood was so warm. So warm..." desperate longing. John could almost picture her oily drool. He rubbed the bandages covering his gouged chest. Four days and they still hurt like hell.

Four days of no sleep and once a day scraps was turning his mind to mush. And the throbbing headache only diminished his focusing abilities.

" I can still taste it on my fingers."

" You can taste?" John asked, regretting it before even finishing it, and tensing to brace himself for what would come next.

A shriek, like metal tearing metal, then a thunderous hammering as Meyon threw herself against the door.

" Mine! Mine! he is mine!" she screamed between thuds. " He is mine! Give him to me now! Noooooow! Noooooow! Give him to me!"

John's heart jolted with each thud, his panting breaths hitched with each scream, and his stomach attempted to seek shelter in his throat. He was also shaking hard enough for his limbs to fly apart.

John masked fear behind nonchalance and caustic remarks for two reasons. One: because in the face of enemies, it bought time and also because the only way to go down is to go down defiant to the last. Two: because in the face of friends, team, and subordinates, it helped to bolster their own courage and supply them with hope. But there was fear, deep inside, pumping his heart several rates faster and coating his body in sweat. On occasion, he might shiver, or his hands might shake, and that was as far as it went. Like pain, John had a high tolerance for fear, and knew how to stifle it.

John's present fear was a rarity, almost to the point of being new to him. Raw, smothering, making him want to crawl into a corner with knees pulled to his chest, body rocking, and words streaming out in a gibbering mess. He had control enough not to do that – he always had control. But this fear could almost be described as animal, pure flight without a hint of fight. After all, he was weaponless, and weak as an infant compared to the she-terminator in the next cell. And he was only getting weaker. He doubted he was going to make much of a meal for her hungry highness.

Childish, that was the other way to describe this fear. Monster under the bed, crying for mommy, and all that crap. He really was wishing for his mother right now, not to be in this hell-hole, but for him to be with her (despite the fact that she was dead), safe and soothed by the assurances that monsters don't exist.

 _Just had to come to the Pegasus Galaxy and shoot that all to hell, didn't you?_

Shut up!

The talking to himself part was turning into the byproduct of everything else. And it would have been nice to at least have a stuffed toy or pillow to hug.

John clenched his teeth together. " Freakin' pathetic," he hissed, but couldn't stop flinching with each explosive crash of the metal body against the metal door.

" Miiiiine!"

\-----------------

Meyon had finally stopped her assault on the door to settle for trying to dig her way out or whatever it was she was doing, keeping the silence shattered with her skritch, skritch, skritching that was instigating tiny insects into a frenzy under John's flesh. On occasion, John caught a hissed, "Mine, my treat. Miiiiine."

Gollum would have loved this chick - probably even fork over the precious as a wedding ring.

The prison block door moaned open, and Meyon's skritching halted. John bolted upright at the clacking of claws that didn't stop until they reached his cell. A thunk of an unbolting lock, and the door whined inward to admit Alasia's midnight dark bulk.

" Ient is ready for you now," she said, tone flat as a bored desk clerk at the DMV. John's body broke out in a cold sweat and his heart stepped up to triple time. Four days of being scared witless by Meyon's proximity had driven all thoughts of Ient's purpose for him from his mind. Now he was actually contemplating which of his present predicaments were the lesser of two evils.

Still, getting away from Meyon was getting away from Meyon. John moved from the bed and nearly buckled under a wave of dizziness that tilted and wobbled the room. He twitched his head to clear it, then shuffled behind Alasia as she led the way, speeding up to hide beside her on passing Mayon's cell door.

" Dish?" Meyon hissed, and John cringed. Her sudden shrieks were cut off when John stepped onto the metal platform and Alasia closed the door behind them using her tail. John let her move ahead, though her large form nearly crushed him against the wall. Up the many stairs, then through the door to the endless hallway with its boarded up windows.

He was expecting to enter the dining/reading room, so when Alasia stopped before the dented metal door with its rust-red stains that he doubted to be actual rust, his stomach tied itself into a pretzel squeezing bile into his throat that he had to gulp back down several times. Alasia clacked on the door with her wing claw, and the door whined open to admit them. The beast went first, but John hesitated, twisting the hem of his shirt since he had no pockets to hide his trembling hands.

" Get in here," Alasia wearily snapped. John complied, steeling himself by forcing his hands at his sides with fists clenched. He stepped from the carpeted hall, over the threshold, and onto the cold, bare stone floor granite gray in color.

It was quite the picturesque lab John doubted even a decent horror movie could mimic. Rather cliché being a massive stone chamber and all, but also somewhat unique with all the organic looking wraith technology scattered about. Consoles, holographic imagers, scanners, and cold steel-like tables with metal restraints. To the left, the wall was caked and webbed in organic matter – wraith cocoons, two of which appeared to be occupied, but larger than the average cocoon and sealed to hide the occupants.

What got to John the most, however, was the sickening mettalic and slightly putrid stench of old blood. Old blood splattered to darken the already dark stone to black. Old blood dried brown on several of the restraints. Old blood on the metal door that whined shut behind him, pock-marked with dents and marked with gouges that could only be made by indestructible claws. More old blood marked some of the consoles in the shape of human hand prints.

Ient didn't seem too keen on sanitation. Or maybe liked the feel old blood gave the place.

For John, his gibbering terror was making it hard for him to breathe. He stood stalk still several feet from the now closed metal barrier, trembling like a cornered kitten. He sucked in air at a rapid gasp, and turned his quaking head to the door, plotting how fast he needed to move to get to it before Alasia caught him and dragged him back in.

" Mr. Sheppard."

Too late. John snapped his head around and started stepping backward as Ient moved toward him with robe billowing. John's stiff, unsteady legs didn't allow him to go far, and Ient was moving fast at a walk. He came upon Sheppard in almost a blink, grabbing him by the upper arm to drag him to the middle of the cavernous chamber.

" Don't move," Ient ordered. His manner of speak – disregarding the voice – seemed so human that John hysterically wondered if this were just some human wearing a costume for the sake of debilitating his victims with fear for easier handling.

With one clawed hand grabbing the back of John's shirt, Ient snatched the shirt away, leaving John bare skinned and freezing in the over-sized icebox of a chamber. He then ripped away the gauze on Sheppard's chest, which might have hurt, except that his sweat had rendered the adhesive tape useless. All the while, John stood straight back and proud-looking, fighting the instinct to shrink away and go cram himself into a corner for more gibbering. He was staring straight at Ient, but Ient was too busy looking John over to notice. He took John by the shoulders, spinning him around, then back to the front.

" He's gotten thinner," he stated. He looked up, finally, to grab John by the jaw and move his head about. " Paler." When Ient touched the scabbing claw marks on John's chest, John couldn't suppress a flinch and small gasp. But the inspection of those wounds were short, and Ient place his hand on the right side of John's now more prominently defined ribcage where Meyon's claws had pricked him. " I will need to check for infections. Has he shown signs of illness?"

" The other day he had vomited his meal, and two days before that as well, but I found no vomit today," Alasia said. " I attributed it to nerves."

Ient nodded thoughtfully. " More than likely. I will still have to check though." The wraith looked up again, and again took John by the jaw to study the bruise still lingering on his face. " Meyon resides in a powerful shell," he said, pensive. Then he smiled, eyes bright, almost wistful. " Stronger than she once was. What did you think of her, Mr. Sheppard? What did you think of my Meyon. Is she not a thing of wonder?"

Ient released John's jaw to place his hand on John's shoulder with thumb claw resting below his collarbone.

John gaped at Ient, blinking a few times, thinking over and over 'what the freak!' " I don't even know where to begin telling you why that statement is just so freakin' wrong. Personally I kind of got the impression that Meyon isn't all that home upstairs..."

John was cut off by a strike in the face from Ient that sent him spinning around and crashing hard to the floor. The entire left side of John's face pulsed with pain, and metallic blood pooled in his mouth. He lifted his upper half up on one shaking arm, and cradled the side of his face with his other hand. Blood traced warm lines over his fingers and down his face, starting at his eyebrow.

John looked up at Ient, going for defiance. Ient loomed over him, tall and corpse pale, white hair phantasmal against the dark stone of the chamber. The wraith's fingers twitched, especially on the feeding hand. What was worse was the lack of superior rage in Ient's eyes. Wraith always harbored massive superiority complexes, but what poured from Ient was cold anger, as though John had just insulted him, his mother, and entire ancestral lineage. John couldn't hold back any longer, and though maintained his look of defiance, shrank away from Ient, bracing for a secondary strike or a palm slamming into his chest.

" You will not speak of Meyon as you did," Ient sneered, baring his teeth. " You will show her respect. You will show her fear. And you will grovel at her feet as the pathetic meal that you are." Ient then reached down to grab Sheppard's arm and haul him to his feet. He dragged Sheppard to the right, near the cocoon's, and a console on the back wall. Next to the console – a chair, a plain wooden chair like the seat of an electric chair minus the electricity. Ient practically threw John into it, then strapped his arms and legs to the thing.

" This will prove unpleasant," Ient snarled.

It got even harder for John to breathe. His heart was beating too fast, fit to explode. Blood he hadn't been given the chance to spit out spilled over his lip to dribble and stretch from his mouth to his heaving chest like drool. He swallowed, then gagged on the pungent tasting liquid. Ient busied himself at the console for a moment, then turned to John to take more blood from his arm with another syringe. He set the syringe in the metal box on the small table beside the chair. Next he took a cloth and wiped the side of John's face. After that, he picked up a coil of clear, fibrous cable attached at both ends to long, thin needles. John didn't think anything of it, nor of Ient going behind the chair, until he felt the sting of a needle piercing him through the base of the skull and moving upward toward his brain.

John stiffened and sucked in a ragged breath. His back arched, his ribs spread, and the shock of feeling the needle sliding into the base of his skull and the agony of it didn't even let him scream. Instead, he gripped the armrest until his nails bit into the wood, and clenched his jaw hard enough for his teeth to break. He did not see Ient move away, or where he placed the other end of the coil. John was too busy trying not to puke.

Suddenly, there was a hum, and a low vibration leaked into his skull, filling his body. It grew, creating a sound too unbearably loud. He tugged at the restraints to break free and cover his ears, but only started abrading his flesh with nothing to show for it. Then- agony; hot currents of pulsating agony filling every inch of him. He choked on air, gasped, sputtered, then finally screamed loud enough to drown out the deafening noise. The pain consumed him until there was nothing left, and filled his vision with darkness.

\------------------

John's world was a haze of blurred light and fuzzed images. They pulsed without rhythm, fading into darkness, fading back to twilight blue and ghostly white. He could hear his heart beating, like a hammer hitting wood wrapped in layers of cotton. He could hear his breathing, loud and hollow as a bellows. And he felt cold, as though wrapped in ice-coated slime that made him shiver like a frightened pup.

Indeed, he was frightened; hysterically so. But nothing it could do against the total body lethargy keeping him limp and useless as a rag doll.

When darkness faded, things had changed. He was staring at a dark gray haze. A face loomed into sight, pasty as dead flesh and framed in spider silk white hair. Then darkness flowed back in, leaving him to his heart and to the cold. When it shrank away, the face was clearer, Ient's face, moving in and out of sight, saying things, asking things. Ient was... doing something... to John. He could feel the cold hands, the light brush of claws. Yet it wasn't the same. It was less... tangible... more like something John was recalling in vivid memory than actually feeling. Too vivid as it made his flesh want to crawl from his bones.

Then came pain. John couldn't see what Ient was doing, but whatever it was, it hurt like hell. It was focused on his limbs at the joints, on his chest, around his heart, about his skull. He trembled with it, which was all he was pretty much capable of, and whimpered in his head silent pleas for the darkness to get back here and end all this. It did, right when the pain hit hard at his chest, and he screamed...

\------------------

John awoke screaming, then scrambling and falling from the unyeilding mattress to the unyeilding floor. He scuttled back until he was pressed against the wall where his hand went immediately to his chest. He yanked down the shirt, then the fresh bandaging, to see the same wounds cleaned and scabbed with dry blood. Smoothing the bandage back into place, he pulled up his sleeves to check his elbows, then his pant legs to check his knees. No incisions, no cuts, not even pinpricks where needles would have gone. Thinking of needles, John's hand went to the back of his neck at the base of his skull, and felt a tiny pad of gauze taped there.

Dream, dream, just a dream, a stupid dream, just a dream... Not getting the needle stuck in his head. That had been real. But the rest... Right?

John pulled himself into a tight huddle with his knees pulled up pressing his clasped hands to his chest. He felt inexplicably odd, wrong, somewhat detached, or perhaps that was just good old paranoia. He also felt dirty, coated in grime, and violated with the notion of things done to him that would be better off remaining dream delusions. He wished he could take his skin off and put on a newer, fresher hide - or at least get a shower.

Except he knew a shower wouldn't cut it. The dirt went too deep. John pried his hands to look at them, but saw no slime, no marks of Ient's handy work. And yet something had been done, altered, perhaps, too deep for John to see. Or maybe this was only phase one, and change would not manifest until phase two or three.

John clasped his hands back together and licked his dry, cracked lips, swallowing convulsively. His skin prickled with nerves singing as though fingers were brushing against his arm, then about his head. Momentary, easy to shake off, but not enough for his roiling stomach to dismiss. John lurched to the side just as the vomit raced burning up his throat to splash brown and putrid on the already stained floor. He heaved, gagged spat, then crawled away from the mess and back onto the bed, hauling his chilled and aching body onto the smelly mattress. He remained on his side, wiping his face with his arm, smearing himself with saliva, snot, and tears. He then wrapped his arms around himself, panting and longing for water to at least allow his mouth to feel clean.

Silence. John was surrounded by silence, so either Meyon was feeling stoic or wasn't present. John took advantage of the moment and let his heavy eyelids slide close. His mind drifted on a sea of images. Atlantis, what they were doing, if they were searching for him, how they might be doing so. Rodney in his lab, Teyla with her sticks, Ronon cleaning gun and knives, Elizabeth standing in the control room, watching the gate, giving orders.

Blue-white haze and slime coated skin in an arctic shell. John snapped his head up with a ragged gasp and fluctuating heartbeat.

The door whined open with Alasia poking her large head through, mane tips whispering over the floor.

" You're awake," she stated. " Took you long enough. I believe two days of sleeping it off might be considered over doing it." She shoved the door open further with her bulk, and set the tin plate with the crust of bread and the tin cup of water on the floor. She passed her eyes over the room until the solid blue orbs rested on the puddle of vomit by the wall. " Suppose you're not up for a meal then." But she didn't remove the food when she slipped from the cell.

John's body was hit with an electric jolt of cold terror at the cell door being left open that had him shrinking against the wall in a trembling heap. It eased up at Alasia's return. She stepped over the plate and cup, clutching a large wad of cloth in one claw that she used to mop up the vomit. It was a haphazard job at best with the vomit more dispersed than absorbed. As Alasia cleaned, John crept from the bed to reach out and pull the plate and cup toward him, then dragging them with him one at a time to the wall so he could stuff himself into the corner. He took the water first, sipping, rinsing, spitting, then gulping it down in three swallows. The bread he ate with less relish, chewing and swallowing as though it were more a chore he had to perform than a need. But when the vomit did not threaten, he took slightly larger bites. He watched Alasia warily and also because he didn't have much else to occupy his mind with. The creature frightened him , but at the same time fascinated him, and he still wasn't able to form an opinion of her, whether or not he could consider her as a means of help.

John's hand wandered to the gauze at the back of his skull. " What did he do to me?" he said, barely, mostly to himself.

Alasia heard. " You're better off not knowing."

John's heart seemed to try to stuff itself into his throat. " You sure about that? You're not exactly me. I mean what do I have to worry about here? Vomiting, obviously. Any other side effects? Cramps, heart attacks, diarrhea, mutation, death..."

Alasia never looked up from her smearing. " Expect excruciating headaches. Ient will tell you what he's doing in time, he always does. I've no real interest in his projects and he knows it, so he brags to who he can. He'd do better at explaining it anyways."

John took a tasteless bite of bread, chewed and swallowed, wincing when it scraped against his throat. His eyes flicked to the gaping cell door that had yet to burst open by a raging robot body gunning for Sheppard's heart.

" Ient lonely or something?" he asked. At this, Alasia did look at him by snaking her head around. Shrugging sheepishly, John tilted his head in the direction of Meyon's cell.

" Robo-lady. I'm assuming she's Ient's rendition of the perfect girlfriend gone horribly wrong."

Alasia's lids slid over her eyes in a lazy, indifferent blink. " She used to be a wraith queen."

John, in the process of chewing and about to swallow, choked on the dry crust. " What!"

Alasia snorted but said nothing further seeing as how she was finished. She headed out the room, taking the now empty plate and cup along the way. Once out, the door whined shut and the lock clunked into place.

" Word to the wise," she said before final departure. " Meyon will be returning soon. I suggest you stay quiet." Then the door leading from the cell block thumped close.

John rose on unsteady legs and moved back to the bed where he curled up and attempted another nap. Images flitted, ending at the white-blue haze and cold that snapped him back awake. He heard weeping, and curled up tighter.

" Disshhhh?"

John squeezed his eyes shut, but couldn't keep them shut when the cold slime felt thicker on his skin every time he tried.

Please no...

\---------------

Teyla's foot dislodged a rock to go clattering over the cracked stone street with snapping echoes like sticks being broken in a cave. The high, crumbling walls of once homes crowding the narrow street and blocking the majority of the sunlight made Teyla's surroundings very cave like. Glassless windows and doors less thresholds gaped at her like the eyes and mouths of corpses after being drained of life until nothing remained but husks. These were ancient structures, most without roofs, many without walls, and all empty within. For the two days of exploring this city nestled in a small, narrow valley between two snow-capped mountains, she had wandered through great halls, massive domed structures, and buildings that might have been stores or homes at one time, all with nothing to show for it. No devices, not even any Ancient script. Nothing but a maze of decay not even graced with the resounding voices of the dead. She had yet to sense any wraith, but being in this place was trying to overwhelm her with the desire to flee and never look back.

But at least she was not alone. Ronon was taking point ahead of her, and a young 'Lantean soldier behind her. No one spoke, not for reasons of safety, but because noise felt like an affront to the timeless silence. Deeper than that, Teyla also harbored the irrational fear that the sound of voices might become a wakeup call to something that was better off remaining in slumber.

This place was too empty. And it was probably a waste of time searching through the remnant of the long dead, except that McKay had had a point when he talked of secret latches opening secret doors to underground worlds and other what-not. Wouldn't be the first time such things had happened. So Teyla, Ronon, and the soldiers assigned to them would search until every crack and corner was locked into memory, as McKay continued to track the wraith device and see where else it led. Though so far, this was the only other collection of ruins they had come across.

Teyla was clinging tenaciously to hope that was giving way to fear now that day two of the search was drawing to a close. For matters of safety, they were not permitted to remain on the planet should other of these miniature wraith cullers be lurking about. One more day of not finding Sheppard was another day that something could be happening to him, some sort of torture, or a decision on the part of a starving wraith to finally feed. It made Teyla's heart pound, her stomach, knot, and had been depriving her of too much sleep for several days now since the Colonel's disappearance. And what made her heart sink further was the knowledge that Sheppard was probably waiting for them, hoping for them, clinging to that hope in much the same way that Teyla was.

Thinking about it felt like a knife was being twisted into her stomach, and every time, her eyes stung with tears.

To her relief came the high hum of a jumper decloaking overhead. Disregarding the pressing silence, the team ran to meet it at the city's center. They arrived to see the jumper already on the ground, with another coming from the other direction descending beside it. Several more soldiers and two scientists came hurrying from different parts of the ruins carrying scanners, LSDs, and maps of the city copied from the HUD of the jumpers.

Teyla stepped onto the lowered ramp and was met by an anxious Dr. McKay.

" Anything?"

She shook her head solemnly, and McKay's shoulders sagged. " Great, just freakin'... great. The mini-culler wasn't much help either." He then turned and went back into the jumper where the wraith device sat, partially gutted. Dr. McKay dropped himself on the bench, picked up a tool from the metal box beside him, and began working on the device. Teyla came up beside him and sat to watch. Ronon sat across from the two to tear into an MRE.

" May I ask what you are doing, Dr. McKay?" Teyla said.

" Plan B. The tracker works wonders, but seeing as how this sucker has no reason to flit on home, I thought I might give it a reason. I'm deactivating the culling mechanism. Hopefully, whoever owns this thing has some kind of warning system attached to alert them when one of these puppies is malfunctioning. After we drop everyone off at the gate, we're going to release this thing and keep following it around until it finally takes us someplace interesting. After that, then it's the grunt squads turn to play as they go 'have fun storming the castle'. Which will hopefully result in the return of a bruised, annoyed, but very alive Sheppard."

Most of what Dr. McKay tended to say made little sense, but over time Teyla had come to grow used to McKay's ramblings enough to at least get the gist of it. She placed her hand on his shoulder, hope given its second chance, and shoving her trepidation aside.

\-------------------

On arriving back to the gate, Teyla stood staring into the twilight sky as the jumper rose and the device was released. It went darting off into the starry backdrop, and the jumper banked to follow. She watched until both vanished, looking away when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She was taken back to see Ronon, always so expressionless, actually appearing concerned.

" They'll find him," he said, like a statement of fact rather than as words of comfort, and Teyla was glad for it. They turned to the activated gate to step through with the rest. Her heart lurched at that simple action, as though she were turning her back on Colonel Sheppard.

But she wasn't. She knew damn well she wasn't. And she would be back.

\------------------

John stared at the stained ceiling, and every time he blinked, felt the grit coating his eyeballs.

" Miiiiine! He is miiiiiine! Let me taste, let me...! Miiiiine!"

Metal hammered against metal. John didn't dare close his eyes. If Meyon didn't get him, then Ient would. John didn't know how or when, but every time John tried to sleep, Ient was in his head... doing things. Things John felt, things that hurt and throbbed even after he awoke. And yet left him without a mark to prove it. Days he counted by his meal delivery, and three had passed since waking up from the two days of the only sleep he'd gotten since.

He was so tired. His body ached for sleep, his head pulsed painfully with the need, and his eyes felt dry and shriveled in the sockets. And yet despite the weariness, with his hands draped over his chest as he lay prone in the bed, he could feel his heart going rapidly as the heart of someone who'd been running. He blamed it on Meyon. The chick didn't know when to shut up.

" Your blood... Your heart... it will be so sweet! Please! Please, a taste! Just a taste!" Meyon wailed. John's muscles twitched at the next impact. Between the lack of sleep and the lack of proper food, he wasn't afforded the luxury of becoming desensitized to the cacophony. And in moments of delirium, John actually wished Meyon would tear him apart already just so he could have a moments peace.

Then lucidity would surface for a breath of air, and John would shrink at the thought.

" A taaaaste! I..." wham! " Want..." wham! " A..." wham! " Taaaaaaaaaaste!" Wham!

John bolted out of the bed and began pacing when twitching turned into uncontrollable agitation.

" Noooow! I want him now! His flesh, his blood... A taste, please! I am so hungry...!"

" Join the club, lady!" John snarled.

" Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!" Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Over and over. John paced faster and pressed his hands against his ears only to have the roar of his blood join the thunder of Meyon's impacting body.

John chuckled hysterically. " I wouldn't be much of a meal, lady. Kind of stringy and getting stringier by the day! You can thank your boyfriend Ient for that. No freakin' meat on me what so ever, and none of that tasty defiance you're so doped up about. Not even sweet, sweet fear, just total complacency if it gets you to shut the freakin' hell up!"

" Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!" Meyon shrieked. Wham, wham, wham!

" Shut up, shut up, shut up you stupid iron clad wraith whore!" John dropped his arms and stormed to the door. " Shuuuuuut uuuuuuuup!"

" Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!"

Silence hit John like a gunshot when the cell block doors groaned open and the fight seemed to go out of Meyon. John could hear Alasia's claws clacking, then the clunk of a lock and the whine of a cell door being open. John backpedaled until he was against the wall right at the same moment that Meyon's body slammed into his own cell door. Following that came the nails on chalkboard screech of Meyon's claws on the metal of the barrier.

" You're mine, little morsel. I will feed on you until there is nothing left. I will gnaw on your bones, wear your skull around my neck..."

" Come Meyon, Ient awaits," came Alasia's bored voice.

" Little human, sweet little human. I will taste you slow and savor it. You will die in agony..."

Claws clacked and the door moaned shut, leaving John in silence and with a body drenched in cold sweat and trembling. He slid to the floor while tears of relief tracked down his face. Perhaps it was exaggerated relief, but he took what he could get.

He felt his mind drifting, not toward sleep, but in a state of fading coherence and utter exhaustion. Combinations of terror, fury, and insanity tended to take a lot out of a man. So he let himself drift with it being the closest he could get to proper rest.

His mind wandered back to the past, to Highschool and a friend who had been religious in nature and smarter than most teenagers in Sheppard's point of view. Nothing had seemed capable of faltering Alicia's faith. Not the bad in the world, not the people who clung too tightly to logic and science, nothing. She never pushed her beliefs on anyone and never went fanatical. If anything, she had been wise, probably still was. Her only real beef with anyone on matters of religion was laying the blame on God for all the bad. She used to talk of agency, and that it wouldn't be agency if God stepped in every single time. God didn't let bad things happen to people, people let bad things happen to people. Blaming God was sort of like blaming your own parents for the car wreck you got into because you listened to your friends who said drinking was cool after your parents said it wasn't.

It made sense. Then again, Alicia always did make sense. She had an answer for everything. Nothing immaculate or for the ages, but profound in its simplicity.

She also had said that a part of having agency was choosing when to ask for help, and getting smart enough to ask. And wasn't that Sheppard's biggest flaw according to everyone else? Never asking for help, always hiding behind 'I'm fine' rather than admitting to having a problem. But he would definitely admit to it now. He needed help in a bad way.

Except that he'd never been wholly religious. Not blatantly atheist like McKay, but somewhat agnostic. He did not deny the existence of higher powers, he just never took the time or the care to look deeply and find faith of his own. Alicia, her conviction, her knowing, had made it rather difficult to give into any kind of atheism. She used to push and prod him to see the good in the world, especially the small stuff, because that was everywhere.

John wished Alicia was here now. Well, not here, maybe just able to communicate from some far off, safer place, so she could tell him how the praying thing worked. She would tell him that he should have done that first, not leave it as a last resort, then she would tell him what to do, knowing John had never been a true praying man and so didn't have a clue. But she wouldn't fault him for it. She had never faulted anyone for anything.

She did tell him God always listened to those who called, you just needed to call, then have patience, because not all prayers were answered in a day. Answers came when they needed to come, not when one wanted them to come.

John wasn't given the chance for any kind of praying when the cell block door moaned, claws clacked, and his own cell whined open. Alasia poked her head in and snorted.

" Ient wishes to see you."

John's breathing increased. " With that metal whack job still with him? Oh hell no!"

" Meyon is quite subdued. She will not harm you. But Ient will if you do not come now."

John couldn't say who would enact worst pain – Ient or Meyon - and felt as though he were getting a bum deal even with his cooperation. Yet he followed Alasia all the same, just to play it safe. She led him to the lab where he saw Meyon strapped to a table, her metal body uncovered and her chest panel removed as Ient fiddled with the organic looking innards of clear wiring pumping some sort of blue fluid through the body, and a pulsing heart-like apparatus covered in blue-violet webbing that glowed. Meyon's head rolled to the side, facing John, causing John to instinctively back up into Alasia. The metal wraith opened her fang-filled mouth and... sighed contentedly.

" Tasty little human," she breathed wistfully as though in the throes of euphoria. She was high, the freaky metal wraith queen was doped up past her metal skull.

" Little, yes," Ient said, touching something like a miniature welder to one of the wires of the pulsating techno-heart. " Tasty I doubt. You have been quite restless, Mr. Sheppard." Ient didn't look up as he spoke. " Hysterical, in fact. Upsetting my dear Meyon. Agitating her into a maddened frenzy. Causing her to torture herself by mutilating her body against her door."

John's jaw fell slowly open. " What? No. Look, I so much as sneeze and she goes ballistic..." John looked back to the drugged or whatever her problem was Meyon. Again her mouth was open, and John could have sworn it was because she was smiling at him. He pointed a stiff, shaking finger at her. " Did – did she tell on me? She told on me, didn't she? Look, I don't do anything. She just goes nuts every time she realizes I'm around. And yeah I went ballistic, she wouldn't shut up! Maybe she wouldn't keep trying to kill herself if you put a hell of a lot more space between us."

Ient replaced the chest panel that sealed to the metal body with a hiss. The body was skeletal, the arms and legs bone thin, the ribcage solid rather than barred, and the spine slightly thicker than a human spine but still ambidextrous with individual vertebrae. It seemed such a frail looking body, but in all terrifying truth, John was the only frail one in the room.

With the touch ups complete, Ient moved around the table toward John, and Meyon rose to sit on the edge and watch, head tilted to one side and jaws parted. Ient stopped in front of John to tower over the fragile human. John stood as straight as his exhausted body would allow, meeting Ient's gaze, and fighting the trembling down to mere twitches and shudders.

" Your presence torments her," Ient said, tone flat and cold.

" Then move one of us," John spat back.

Ient grinned, flashing his dagger teeth. He then struck John in the side of the face with a force than twisted John around while at the same time knocking him to the floor. John fell hard, stars flashing and darkness splotching his eye sight. He barely got his elbows under him when Ient's boot impacted into John's breakable ribcage with a crunch, again and again until John couldn't take a breath. Following that, Ient's fist slammed into John's back, right at the center of his spine. John cried out, then cried out again when Ient grabbed him by the hair and pulled him to his knees. Ient kept pulling, bending John's neck back until he was forced to look up into Ient's blazing eyes.

" She is suffering," he hissed with saliva strings stretching from his teeth. " She hungers, and rages in need of fulfillment. She was a queen, a great queen, and you are nothing but an insect to her. So you will not speak ill of her, you pathetic creature, nor will you speak to her, or even think of her. But you will bow to her."

With that said, he lifted John to his feet and threw him at the feet of Meyon. John stumbled onto his hands and knees, quaking in pain and disorientation. He looked up at Meyon, and Meyon looked down at him. With jaws gaping in a hiss of pleasurable surprise, she reached down a clawed hand to touch his face. John recoiled back like a kicked dog.

" Let her feel you!" Ient snarled, stomping up behind John. Again the wraith lashed out, but with claws instead of fist, raking John's back so that he reared upright and arched, screaming. Ient then grabbed the back of John's neck, forcing him back onto his hands and knees. John gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut as Meyon's claws reached down to caress his face, starting at his temple, tracing down over his cheekbone, then his jaw, and down his throat like a cold knife. He cringed, shivering, heart beating so hard that it felt ready to explode. The cold dagger traced along his collarbone as though the creature were mapping his frame. The single dagger lifted away so the hand of knives could press against his chest. John tried to shrink away, but Ient wouldn't let him, and increased the pressure on the back on John's neck.

" His heart..." Meyon spoke with what sounded like fascination and longing, lilting into a need that was painful. " It is so strong, so fast. I wish to taste him. One taste?"

Suddenly, her other hand shot out, grabbing John by the throat and lifting him onto his knees to press her hand in harder. Her eyes burned in anticipation, then Ient placed his own clawed hand on her skeletal arm.

" Not yet, great one. I still need him."

Meyon looked up at Ient. " Soon?"

Ient smiled, almost... lovingly. " Yes, very soon. But not yet."

Pacified, she released John, allowing him to shrink back then carefully creep away as though she might strike again at any moment. Ient took the long-fingered hand of the metal creature and helped her to rise. With the other hand, he gestured casually at John.

" Take him back, I am done with him for the day."

Alasia went over to John and hooked a wing claw under his armpit to lift him. She kept the claw on him as he staggered and she hobbled from the lab, down the hall, into the abyss chamber of stairs, and back to his cell. There, all strength left him, and he crumpled to the floor, a shivering mass, panting and shaking, one arm pressed against his burning ribs, the other rubbing the bandaged area of his chest. He felt heated drops of blood tickling down his throbbing, stinging back, and hot tears racing eachother down his face.

He didn't even know Alasia had left, but realized that she was coming back when he heard the clack of her claws. With one claw she lifted him up, with the other she whipped off the flimsy shirt, then set him back down on the frigid floor.

" This may sting," Alasia said. Something cool and rough was placed against Sheppard's back, and it did sting, like hell. He let loose a broken whimper of pain with back slightly arched, but didn't have any strength left to so much as scoot an inch away.

" I used to be human, once," Alasia said. " Like you."

John flinched at that, and twisted his head as far his his aching neck would allow, but it was enough to see at least on of Alalsia's eyes. He squinted at her, studying her, trying to understand but too hazed and reeling to be able to.

" G-genetics?" he finally managed to ask. Now it was Alasia doing the squinting.

" Gi-net-eks?"

John swallowed against the onslaught of pain, sloughing through it too keep his mind focused enough to listen and absorb. He patted his chest. " Messing with... y-your insides. Changing what you are... into something else."

" Oh, that. Ient has had his dealings in that, but the results are what had him banished so he never touches the stuff. Attempted to alter the structure of humans by combining wraith structure to their own. The other wraith weren't pleased."

John's heart did a backflip. So Ient's the one to both blame and thank for Teyla's unique spidey-sense.

" No, Ient's specialty is consciousness. He's got quite a knack for moving a mind around and without touching that little head organ in the skull. This body happens to be my fiftieth, I believe. At first he would move me to human shells, then human-like shells. I was even a wraith for a time, but starved myself refusing to eat. You see, he needed an assistant who understood his work, and I was the only assistant he had that didn't get devoured by his fellow wraith. But being human and all, I aged and would eventually died. So he moved my conscious before that could happen. Easier to do that than train someone new I suppose. He put me in bigger, stronger bodies in order to aid him in dealing with some of his more unstable projects. Meyon, you think her 'suffering' now, you should have seen her when Ient had her moved the first time around. She was the only queen that ever supported him in his endeavors, and actually understood them. I was there, you see. Ient was completely fascinated with her. And of all her drones and commanders, he was her favorite. I honestly think that what I was observing was as close as wraith got to love. Not that they did any sort of bonding ritual or any such as. More along the lines of her letting him do whatever he wanted, and him giving her the choicest of his test subjects to feed on. At the time I thought it was... sweet. But then at the time I'd been a... more devout wraith worshipper than I am now."

Alasia spat the words more than just said them, the acid so thick they could have melted walls.

" Then one day, Meyon was wounded by a rival queen in an attack. Ient managed to escape with her body, but was unable to save it since where they hid held no life. He preserved her body before death in a dart and hid it. He was forced to work for the rival queen until his project had him banished. Free from hive obligation, he focused his studies on saving his 'beloved'. It eventually led to him being able to move the conscious mind. He had actually first moved Meyon into a human body, but she had tried to kill her self in disgust. He attempted making duplicates of her body, but could not duplicate immortality even with the ability to feed. She lived less than a human. So he built her bodies of metal and wires, and has been doing that ever since, perfecting them each time, making them stronger, faster, more wraith in shape. The end product he hopes to cover in a false skin, even did it once. It's her blasted desire to feed that keeps him at it, building and building and building. She doesn't even need to feed but can't get past the subconscious instinct to do so. She's in a perpetual state of starvation, and will stay that way unless Ient creates a body that allows her to feed."

John lowered his head back to the floor. " Why are you telling me all this now?"

" To distract you. I'm all done now."

John blinked in surprise, then reached back to feel gauze taped over the claw marks on his back. He could hear the clack of items behind put away, so lifted his head to look back at Alasia.

" Ever thought about leaving?" he asked. " You're big enough, strong enough, to take down Ient."

Alasia regarded John for a moment, then gathered the healing kit and turned to leave. " I have my reasons for staying. I'll return to bind your ribs. They're probably broken."

John's head wobbled on his neck, so he set it back on the floor, bringing his legs up and curling to lessen the pain in his ribs and chest.

Wraith with names, wraith falling in love, mad scientist wraith, psycho metal wraith. It was like every movie genre ever made say for westerns rolled into one and starring nothing but wraith. Terror squeezed John's stomach in a vice, making it roil and churn. But he clamped his mouth shut tight, refusing to discard the meager nutrients still in his gut that were the only nutrients he had. Ient had said not yet to Meyon's request to feeding. Not yet. But soon? Was Ient close to his goal? How close?

John couldn't help the tears cascading down his face. Then he couldn't help screaming when excruciating pain spiked through his skull, pulling his hands from his chest to grab his head, back arching and body writhing helplessly on the cold, stained floor.

\-------------------

John could only assume it was the dreams. He had yet to ever yell at Meyon. When she ranted, John huddled tight into a corner, or on the bed, with ears covered and body and mind too weary to care. So it had to be through the dreams that Ient found out about John's darkened thoughts concerning Meyon turning into a rusting heap, or calling her a bitch, slut, and a combination of derogatory terms. John tried not to sleep, but there were days (days he attributed to his food being laced with some sort of drug) that he couldn't stop the lethargy followed by his eyelids siding shut on their own accord. Then he would see, and feel, and wake up in a freezing sweat with a tear-stained face, shaking hard enough to fly apart. In the dreams he was cold, slime-slicked, and in terrible pain. Ient would poke, prod, and demand questions from him... sometimes about Meyon, and what John thought of her.

So it had to be through the dreams he found out, because he was always beating John for something.

Dragged into the lab, kicked, punched, thrown about, choked, slapped, then occasionally 'pet' by Meyon. She liked to put her hand on his chest, to feel his heart beat, and that always got him puking after being dragged bloody, bruised, and unable to even twitch a finger back to his cell. Alasia would administer to him with ointments that stung, but she was as gentle about it as she could be with only single wing claws to work with. But she never said anything to him, no since that day when she told him everything. Nothing much left to tell, John supposed. But he longed for a non-threatening voice, even if it was sarcastic.

John counted the passage of time by the arrival of his food. But that tended to be thrown off by the debilitating headaches that occasionally stabbed through his skull. Odd headaches too, because sometimes he swore he could hear voices within the pain. He guessed himself to have been a guest of Ient for two weeks, maybe a week and a half.

And yet to be rescued.

It was all he thought about, being rescued. It was all he could think about, and always in a circle of stages. Longing, hope, worry, fear, then anger because he was still here, still hurting.

Where are they? The same stupid question, day in, day out. Where are you?

Were they lost, taken, or had they just given up on him, moved on, left him for dead?

He couldn't dwell on the anger. He knew his team, he knew Atlantis. They wouldn't leave him behind. Friends didn't do that, and he trusted them, believed in them, knew they would come. Knew and longed so much and so hard that when his dreams were not invaded, and were allowed to go where they would, and he would dream of rescue seeing his friends faces come through that door, he would awake to reality and weep. Even the mere remembrance of those dreams brought him to tears with a sorrow that tore his heart from his chest and shred it to nothing.

They'll come. They will. I know they will. Too bad magic spells didn't exist or he would be free by now. But he liked thinking the words, he liked the hope that came with them, even if all they ever ended up being were words and a false feeling.

Ient did little else with him except beat him until John's right arm became useless to him, breathing hurt, and he was walking with a limp. He tried to fight back, on several occasions, gathering what little energy he could backed by fury and agony to lunge at Ient. He managed a few good hits, which got Ient to admire John right before he pounded the weak human into submission.

And Meyon screamed, pummeled herself, and made promises of bloodshed and feeding. Lucky for John – the only luck he seemed able to scrounge – he was too exhausted, too hungry, dizzy, sick, and in too much pain to care. When silence did come, it came as a shock that frightened him just as much as Meyon's madness.

They'll come, they'll come...

The second week was about to lead into the third, or at least John assumed. He stopped counting. Too painful. Alasia came to get him, still holding to her vow of silence. She moved to the bed for him to grab her shoulder as support as he stood. He continued to hold on all the way to the lab, forcing Alasia to move slowly as he limped alongside her, his shoulder against her shoulder, and the hand of his good arm gripping a handful of her mane. She'd been acting as his crutch for the past two days, and today she was pretty much taking most of his weight. The stairs were the worst, with her finally giving in to semi-carrying him by wrapping her wing claw around his waist.

They didn't go to the lab. Alasia took him beyond the dented door, and the alteration jolted him in both relief then fear. The once human woman turned beast escorted him to the dining/reading room. Meyon was there, seated, sipping from a tin cup. She looked up at John and her eyes brightened.

" Little huuuuumaaaan..." she hissed.

John gulped. " Can't you at least call me Sheppard."

Her metal jaws clacked and she took a sip from her cup.

Three chairs down from Meyon sat another figure - not tall enough to be Ient - hidden within a heavy brown robe that was ragged and frayed. The hood of the robe twitched when the head moved in John's direction, and cold shot down John's spine though he wasn't sure why.

He was distracted by Meyon not making a move to to attack him.

" What's with the drink?" he asked Alasia.

" It helps to calm her and dulls the pain when Ient must work on her."

Alasia guided John to the chair across from the hooded figure. He eased himself into it, looking from Meyon warily to the hooded figure nervously. He stared at the hooded figure for a moment before raising his hand in a small wave.

" Hi."

The figure raised its arm buried within the thick, billowing sleeve with a small wave of its own, but said nothing. An awkward silence hovered between them, one that even John's worn body couldn't handle, so got him fidgeting.

" Come here often or are you new?" Idle chitchat had its uses, even if it did feel like a pathetic attempt at hiding unease.

Newbie didn't respond, bringing out more fidgeting in John.

" Hiiiiii," Meyon breathed, head lolling drunkenly. John neither spoke, thought, or looked her way. Thinking, however, he couldn't help, so steered it in a direction he hoped would spare him from more bruising.

Oh that amusing queen. She's such a pleasure to be around. And I mean it! He chuckled out loud, weak and slightly hysterical. Then the doors moaned open and Sheppard jumped, going stick rigid and just as ready to snap.

" Mr. Sheppard."

Ient's voice sent another cold shock wave down John's back. He tried not to shrink or cringe, but couldn't stop the quaking. He had hoped today to be an off day for the pain.

Pain – his high tolerance for it was the one having the day off. He'd come to realize that there was a formula when it came to dealing with the pain. During his retrovirus torment, the handle came from needing to put on a brave face for the others, and also knowing that it would end one way or another, either in death or by a cure. With torture it was pretty much the same deal, replacing cure with rescue. Plus there was a greater purpose for fighting the pain, and that was to keep anything from slipping off the tongue that would end up making all of Atlantis miserable. Pain tolerance was fighting the good fight, so fight he did.

But getting pounded because of stray negative thoughts about a robot wraith queen... How does one fight that? Don't think. Ha! Wouldn't McKay like that. 'Why Sheppard, I would believe not thinking would be your area of expertise.' John had also begun to suspect that his feelings toward the psychotic metal wraith were betraying him to Ient, because he could have sworn he pulled off not thinking ill about Meyon a couple of times. Or maybe John had been missing the big picture and really did need to throw in a few positive mental praises.

Whatever the case, John didn't know how to handle it, and nothing he did had yet to prove favorable. And that scared the hell out of him. For all he knew, Ient liked to beat for the sake of beating. The wraith wasn't all that neat and tidy in the head himself.

So John didn't hide his fear. Couldn't even if he wanted to, and he wanted to, at least for the sake of acting defiant. Not many other ways for him to be defiant as it was.

Ient's hand landed on John's shoulder, and he flinched, swallowing several times to get his heart back into his chest.

" You are quite the asset, Mr. Sheppard," said Ient. " Most of my test subjects are usually dead by now. Normally by their own hands if they can find the means. You really were a find. I may have to keep you on for further projects, which you should consider quite the positive. More rations. I can not have my best subject wasting away to nothing."

He slid his hand from John's shoulder to make his way around the lengthy table. He stopped behind the cloaked figure and placed both hands on the apparently quaking shoulders.

" Although I've yet to test your breaking points," he said. He then yanked the hood off the figure. John blinked and started in surprise.

Another robot – a copper colored, somewhat patchwork robot, skeletal like Meyon but less sophisticated. The eyes were tiny blue pinpoints, the teeth more rounded than dagger sharp, and the fingers – though also long and thin – were blunt and less menacing. Sort of like Meyon's ugly twin sibling.

And polar opposite, because instead of revulsion, John felt pity for the thing. Funny, yes, ironic, very considering his own state, but the thing looked so pathetic, with its head swaying on its weak neck and metal body trembling like it was cold, to which John could sympathize. He was freezing.

" Let me guess," John said, feeling suddenly bold at the sight of something as bad off as himself. It may have been a machine, but a sneeze probably could have taken it down. " Your first attempt at a child to complete your happy little family? I'd suggest you'd try again, but you must have already formed an attachment seeing as how it's still existing."

Instead of rage or even cold anger, Ient just smiled an amused smile, patting the thing's shoulder. " Actually, Mr. Sheppard. I would like to introduce you to... you."

John's eyes flicked from the thing to Ient incomprehensibly. " Huh?"

" I took some of your conscious and placed it within our metal friend here. Not a large portion, just enough to create a connection. A connection that, so far, has been proving quite effective. More so than I believed possible." Ient reached down to grab the robot's arm and lift it. He pushed the machine creature forward, and proceeded to twist the bony arm behind the things back.

John felt an uncomfortable twinge in his own shoulder. Ient pulled harder, and the twinge became a pulsing, uncomfortable throb that had John rolling his shoulder.

Sympathy pain?

Ient pulled harder. The thing's jaws parted, emitting a metallic squeak of agony. Sheppard made no sound. His jaw dropped when the discomfort became pain, which made him instinctively want to use his already injured arm to clutch the newly injured arm. That movement made him yelp. It also made Rusty the Tin Man yelp, putting a satisfied smirk on Ient's face and getting him to release the arm.

" See?"

John cradle both arms against his chest, Staring at Ient in horror.

" It's the creation that will put me back into favor with my brethren. Not that I care what they think, but they tend to get nosy and demanding whenever they stop by. Always wanting weapons. But weapons take me away from what is important." He glanced at the drugged Meyon. " So I utilized my creation to save Meyon for an invention that will hopefully get my kind off my back for good." He began caressing the smooth metal skull, and both Tin Man and Sheppard cringed.

" The perfect spy. I create the body, take a part of the consciousness of one of your kind, place it in the body, release the human and see what he sees via the machine. Although it seems to work best in sleep. A connection made during waking moments appears to cause severe pain. But it will do. I am still able to extract quite a bit of information during the host's unconscious state." Ient stepped away from Sheppard Tin Man to head back around to table to John. He did not stop, simply grabbed John's arm to drag him from the seat. John stiffened and gasped in a ragged, pain filled breath. Ient dropped him onto the carpeted floor, then hauled him to his knees by the hair.

" I need to see if it works both ways," He said. He placed his hands on either side of John's head without touching him. Familiar pain lanced through John's skull, beating his brain into submission. He heard, distantly, a metallic shriek of pain.

" Close your eyes," Ient demanded. John did so, having no energy to fight it. He saw - rather than darkness - himself from across the table, as his new-found weak, difficult to control body squirmed and writhed in agony. His chest vibrated with his shriek, but his eyes were fixed on himself kneeling before Ient.

John looked terrible with over sized clothes hanging off his skeletal body. His face was sharpened by the protruding bones of his skull, patched in bruises and scabs, but partially covered by the stubble going toward being a beard. The collar of the shirt hanging low down his thin chest revealed more bruising surrounding the white bandage covering the claw marks. He was shaking, breaths coming fast, and the mechanical heart beat in time to his human heart.

And pain, so much pain, existing in two bodies at once. Too much pain, making him wish he were dead.

Or free.

They will come, they will come, they will come...

" What do you see?" Ient demanded, and Sheppard told him, told him everything.

" Me... Look like crap. They... They will come..." he squeaked. " What... am I doing... over there?"

Ient released John, and John's human body crumpled to the floor. Ient thumped him in the chest with the tip of his boot.

" They will not come. Your dear friends," Ient said. John watched a sideways Ient go back to a slumping, shuddering Sheppard Tin Man and check him over. " That is what you met by 'they', is it not? I have seen your friends, been watching them through my cullers. Resilient, ingenious, but I fear not enough for you sake. I've been leading them on a wild chase. They thought they could find me by tracking one of my cullers, but I control the cullers, tell them where to go, how to act. They will never find this place. In fact, they are being led farther and farther from it even as we speak. No amount of scanning, of searching by foot, will have them stumbling upon my home. I have it buried under a myriad of shields meant to confuse."

Ient covered Tin Man's head back up with the hood, then yanked him by the arm into standing and shoved the thing away from the table to start shambling toward the door. Ient turned his attention to Meyon, and turned on the affection by holding out his hand for her to take, lifting her gentlemanly to her feet.

" Although you may get the chance to see at least one of your friends. I need one in order to finalize my deal with my brethren. Set a spy among your people. He or she won't be aware of it of course, unlike you. No need for further testing using another subject, you have cleared matters up for me well enough. A quick transfer then return, and my brethren will have what they want, and I will have what I want..." Ient led Meyon around the table and toward the door, but not before giving John a hard nudge in the back. " Peace and quiet," Ient hissed.

Meyon giggled, the sound a combination of giddy teenage girl, and tickled snake.

John nearly chocked on a tide of despair. Sorrow soaked him, numbed him, making him oblivious to Alasia gathering him into her arms, cradling him with her wings. He did not notice the slow passage of time as she ambled down the hall, or acknowledged being set on the thin mattress of the bed of his cell. He curled into himself, numb, sick, wanting to puke with nothing to expel. The room seemed to dim until shadows pressed around him, shrinking the room until the air became too thin to breathe. He was suffocating, choking on his own breath, gasping...

No, not gasping, hitching, sobbing, tears running hot but turning cold fast. There was a void in him, opening wider and wider toward an endless abyss to swallow him into the dark. Forever lost in the dark. Forever lost.

And John knew what this was.

Loss – total, utter loss.

So this is what it's like to lose hope. It hurt worse than any physical pain. He preferred the physical pains to this agony. Any pain, any kind of feeling, anything but this yawning emptiness that pushed his thoughts toward the desire for death. Quick, slow, he didn't care, just an end.

They aren't coming... They aren't... John wept, lifting his good arm to hide his face. Ient's lying! He's lying! Except that he couldn't figure any reason for Ient needing to lie, except merely for the fun of it. But wouldn't the cruelty be more savory to Ient if what he said was true? The logic of that thought was like ten bullets to John's heart, and he hated himself for being that damn logical. False hope would have been preferable, even if it was lying to himself.

John heard, from far away while being so near, the whine of his cell door and the clack of claws. Something was draped over him, rough, but warm, pooling his meager body heat and giving him a granule of relief from the cold. John lifted his head enough to look at Alasia, into the solid blue of her eyes.

He saw pity, honest to goodness pity where indifference was supposed to be. Alasia lifted one wing claw and brought it in toward John's face. He didn't move, because he didn't care. The claw touched the side of his face gently, wiping away the tears with one careful stroke.

" I was human once," she said, as though wanting him to understand something. She then turned and left, shutting and locking the cell door behind her. John dropped his head back on the bed, pulling the blanket further up his shoulders. New tears replaced the old that Alasia had brushed away. His chest felt so tight, he could barely breathe.

He didn't know what to do. He begged to know, wished to know.

He needed help, but the only help he knew was being taken farther and farther from him. Ient was pulling the strings, and Sheppard would be dead before he finally cut those strings.

And then Atlantis will be lost. Then earth will follow...

It hurt beyond his tolerance, beyond comprehension. John curled even tighter until his face was buried under the blanket, with his forehead touching his knees and his arms buried behind his thighs. He clasped his shaking, blood-stained, and scabbed hands together tightly, fervently, and touched them to his chin.

Please, He silently prayed. Whatever happens to me, please don't let Atlantis be lost. Please let my friends be all right. Please... Please...

Warmth filled the icy void within his chest, spreading to his limbs, easing aching muscles and pained bones enough for his entire body to unwind and sink. It was a pleasant warmth, a safe warmth, like a gentle, loving touch.

Like peace, and he could breathe again.

But he didn't dare sleep.


	3. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm taking liberties with John's past, though not by much. And Sherbet's back! For those of you who read Crash. Not that you have to read Crash to know who Sherbet is. I would have put this up sooner, but couldn't get on the Internet.

Part 3

Ronon observed in silence Rodney's inability to slow down and sit. By the count of five, Rodney was out of the copilot seat of the jumper and in the rear compartment. By the count of fifteen, back at the front, bringing up images from the HUD. Three, he was sitting again, five he was up...

Ronon had yet to even turn his head. He followed Rodney's pattern with eyes only, unperturbed by the scientist's perpetual motion. On the bench across from Ronon, Teyla was asleep nestled in the corner, breathing softly. Major Lorne was silent while piloting and oblivious to Rodney's movements. Ronon assumed this was what Sheppard would refer to as 'having blinders on', since by now someone would be snapping at the scientist to sit down already.

Daylight was about to fade. The sun hovering over the horizon was a deep, burning orange against a backdrop of gold. They would be heading back soon. Another day of chase and find, another day of wandering around skeletal ruins more numerous but less impressive than those near the gate, and another day with nothing to show for it.

Another day, then there would be another, and another. Ronon wouldn't say anything, but it was starting to affect him, this lack of discovery. He couldn't quite explain it in proper words except as a kind of intangible weight settling on his shoulders and in his chest. And Caldwell's talk of calling off the search once the third week was up only gave the weight more... well... _weight._ The man just arrived yesterday and hadn't set one foot in Atlantis before he was calling the shots, effectively pissing Ronon off. He kept saying things like 'inappropriate use of man power and resources' and 'it's been nearly two weeks with nothing to show for it.' But Dr. Weir, being the firm, resolved leader that she was, had put blinders to her ears (if that was even possible, whatever blinders were) and though she had decreased the number involved in the search, she refused to call it off.

Ronon had to admit, he admired that woman. His first impression of her hadn't been all that positive, but he was a man who adapted, who observed, and who didn't adhere to first impressions.

Rodney, for example. The little scientist was stuffed full of surprises. Get him in a combat situation – he survived, but that's as far as he went. Get him on a project to save the city or Sheppard, and Ronon actually felt a very small granule of pity for whoever got in his way. Caldwell's talk of calling off the rescue had Rodney already formulating plans to keep it alive, and enlisting Teyla and Ronon to help. Caldwell may have been the soldier, but Ronon would back the yappy little scientist any day.

The little scientist in question eased himself down on the bench beside the sleeping Teyla, rubbing both eyes with the thumb and fingers of one hand. Rodney was spent, his face color inching toward pale and his eyes bordered by shadows.

" Well, the tracker's still going strong even with the stupid machine fifty miles away. You know, I could swear that thing is going in circles. And either no one's around to fix it or its creator doesn't give a damn that it's broken." McKay dropped his hand then leaned his head back against the bulkhead wall. " Or maybe who ever's controlling it's just toying with us."

Ronon looked Rodney over. He felt bad for the little scientist, he truly did. The man was killing himself trying to save his friend, and now had to push himself harder before Caldwell's deadline.

" We'll find him," Ronon said without a modicum of doubt.

McKay rubbed the side of his face one-handed. " Crap I hope so."

" We will," Ronon said. " We always do."

" Yeah, well, there's a first time for everything."

" You giving up?"

Rodney dropped his hand and glared at the Satedan. " _No_. Look, Caldwell can spout his protocol crap all he wants. He's just the glorified commander of a glorified – albeit awesome – space ship and therefore has no real authority over me. Besides, just because he might give the 'like hell are you going back to that planet' speech doesn't mean Elizabeth'll back him. I doubt he could argue against a few scientific runs involving further exploration of the planet and those mini-cullers floating about. and if we happen to stumble on Sheppard, then so be it. Lucky us." A smiled smugly at his words, and Ronon returned it with a smirk of his own.

But Rodney's self-certainty didn't last, overcome by his weariness. The smile faded, and Rodney's eyes slid closed.

Ronon had faith in the little scientist's abilities, but Rodney had a point. There was a first time for everything.

" We'll find him," Ronon said again. McKay said nothing just nodded, his throat bobbing in a tight swallow.

 _We will,_ Ronon thought. _Alive or dead._

 _Then why haven't we yet?_

SGA

Two choices, that was all, and John made his choice.

He would die, plain and simple. Let Meyon feed on him when the time came, or let himself starve to death, but he sure as hell wasn't going to allow Ient to keep him on as a test subject. Yet John wasn't going to be hasty about it. Granted, bashing his head against the wall would be quicker and less terrifying, but if Ient managed to grab a suitable spy to send back to Atlantis, there was a chance John would have to go down taking that someone with him. Unless some means of escape could be found. John hadn't quite given up on that, he was just being coldly realistic. Rescue was going to be agonizingly slow in coming to the point that it pretty much wasn't going to come in time, and John was too weak and getting overly disoriented to try anything clever.

Besides, Ient was nestled quite comfortably in John's head thanks to Sheppard Tin Man. Anything he planned, Ient would find out about. So given all of John's options, death seemed the only favorable one. Although he'd set it aside for a time if it meant keeping Ient from sending a spy into Atlantis. If John killed the spy, Ient would certainly try to get another, then another...

The thought sickened John. Die, and he wouldn't have to worry about it anymore, except that he didn't want to go out failing Atlantis.

Okay, so even death wasn't all that great of an option. He was screwed, seriously, undeniably, unarguably screwed. Wraith bug and retrovirus screwed had nothing on his present state of screwed, because the only happy endings available were all reserved for Ient and Meyon.

John was officially all out of hope. On hearing Ient's nonchalant announcement that help wasn't coming, John had stopped eating. That was three days ago. He drank, but only because thirst was annoying, and John didn't want to die right away. He needed to be around when Ient's next victim dropped in so he wouldn't have to die alone.

Lying curled on the mattress, John wanted to squeeze his eyes shut in disgust, but didn't dare to, so wallowed in his disgust with eyes wide open. No choice in the matter, really, right? Unless an alternative was found, then to save Atlantis meant someone had to die. Ient, his projects, or his victim. More cold reality, more bashing of hope, and adding fuel to the desire to just die and get it over with.

John had no idea what to do. Not today, and he doubted he would think of anything by tomorrow. It was too hard to think. Positive thoughts concerning Meyon, no sleep, pain and starvation were taking up most of his concentration. John chose death because he wanted his nightmare to end, and he wanted to stop feeling. Every time he so much as closed his eyes in a prolonged blink, he would begin to feel what Tin Man was feeling – cold, slime, touching, and more pain. When awake, it was only strongest when he was near the mechanical creature. When asleep, distance no longer mattered, and everything sharpened to a clarity as though he had jumped from his body of flesh and bone to the body of metal.

Even had he chosen to eat, he wouldn't have been able to keep any of the food down. There wasn't a moment's peace from his gut trying to twist itself into a knot.

The cell door whined on its unoiled hinges with Alasia's head butting it open. She entered halfway and looked down at the floor to the empty cup and still present crust of bread. She took the plate and the cup, then raised her head to look at John

" You're sure about this?"

John nodded.

" Ient will not stand for it. If he chooses to keep you alive, then he will keep you alive by placing you in a cocoon. And I would know. I've gone the way you're going now, and it won't work."

John snorted out an acerbic laugh. " Then let's hope Meyon gets her tasty treat the moment she's in her new body. Unless you know some other way out?"

Same question asked for the past three days, and Alasia's answers was the same. She gave no answer.

" I don't really want to die, you know," John said. He felt it needed to be said, not out of a need for Alasia to understand, but for himself to understand. He wasn't giving up, he just had yet to fathom another way out, and so was simply prepping himself for the worst. Better that than suffering more crushed hope.

" I know," Alasia replied. She then backed out of the cell with the plate and the cup. The cell whined closed, and the lock clunked back into place. Several long minutes later, Meyon returned.

" Little huuuu-maaaan," she sing-songed.

A tear rolled from John's eye down the side of his face. He really didn't want to die – not by her hand.

sgasgasgasgasgasgasga

John's mind was hazed, and he was unable to think period. He lay on his chest, staring at the stained wall, empty of mind and of feeling. An occasional, pointless stray thought would worm its way in, leading nowhere but acting as a reminder that John's brain still worked. His heart beating against the mattress let him know that he was still alive. He didn't even know how many days had passed. He'd stopped counting.

At the moment, his head was filled mostly with Johnny Cash songs, and he idly wondered if it was a particular song that got him to like the music, or if it was because him and Cash both had the same first name. His mind skipped to his first day in Afghanistan, a bunch of grunts offering him some local food that had nearly burned a hole in the lining of his stomach, then those same grunts leaving a camel spider in his bed. Nasty suckers, those camel spiders. John had thought it was a mutated scorpion, and was later accused of yelping like a little girl while leaping back on pulling back the covers and seeing the thing.

Right nice bunch of SOBs those guys were. Thank goodness for Mitch and Dex. Without them, John would have never been able to pull off his acts of revenge. His first act involving a stool softener and pudding had nearly clogged up the toilets. His second act – releasing a bunch of mice into the bunks and getting the men to run out in nothing but boxers just as a group Afghan women were walking by – had marked him as a man not to be messed with.

Real respect came when he refused to leave men behind. Too bad the higher-ups hadn't seen it that way. From the oven of Afghanistan to the freezer of Antarctica, with new pranks to pull and respect to earn. Except there had been no Mitch and Dex to help him. There had been no one to help him. One man against many, and though he pulled stunts just fine, the many returned the favor rather harshly. Filling up his bed with snow, for example, and in an act a cruel revenge for the harmless prank of switching a few of the guys' clothes, thrust out into the snow in nothing but boxers. That one had ended the mini war when he'd nearly succumbed to hypothermia.

More like a stalemate. The men were generally sorry for nearly killing John, but that didn't get them to liking him any better. His only friendship with a man named Carlyle had been short lived when Carlyle was transferred, taking with him his snowboard and thus another means to stay off boredom.

Days filled with ferrying scientists and military personnel. John recalled first encountering McKay, the way he'd sat so rigid that John thought he was going to have to pry the scientist from the seat with a crowbar. Dr. Beckett – had he come before or after McKay? – John couldn't remember. He did remember Beckett's unease, but it had been nothing compared to McKay's. Idle chit chat had calmed the Scott where as the same chit-chat had annoyed the Canadian. John wondered if either McKay or Beckett remembered their first day at the snowy waste, riding in a chopper with the man who would later become their house key to the doors of Atlantis.

Elizabeth he hadn't ferried. Not his shift that day. More than likely he'd been outside with Carlyle, snowboarding down a drift. Either that or sick in bed recovering from hypothermia.

Then came General O'Neil, the only higher up that John had taken a liking to, because the man hadn't waltzed in with a stick up his butt and pretended that John didn't exist. Of course John's opinion of him hadn't been sealed until the General had casually given John clearance to enter a top secret facility, and all because he'd assumed John to be shaking because he was cold, and not because his system was still flooded with adrenaline.

John had done a lot of shaking that day. Lots of excitement, lots of wonder, lots of confusion, and topped off with a smidgen of fear. He'll admit it, he had kept it off the surface of himself well enough in his opinion, but he'd been nervous entering that alien place. The aftermath of activating that chair – inexplicably awesome as it was - had left him edgy and spooked. First encounters with alien technology could do that to a guy.

Elizabeth's talk of aliens, wormholes, stargates, and a request for him to travel to another galaxy had scared the hell out of him. Short lived, of course, after the initial chuckling thinking that this woman had been pulling his leg. It had been a little too much to digest in one day. Funny how he could fly head on into a war zone and not bat an eye, but his hands refused to stop quaking over the fact that he'd sat in an alien chair and made it light up.

 _Do I regret it now?_

He really couldn't say. He'd made mistakes, and Antarctica had been peaceful with responsibilities that didn't involve ensuring safety and saving lives. But Atlantis was... a life, with friends, with purpose, and without the need to pull pranks to win respect.

The scales refused to tip one way or the other. He had regrets, but if he really thought about it (or perhaps it was his inability to think) he didn't really regret coming. If he was going to die, at least he could now die saying he'd done something big lightyears beyond shuttling people across a snowy waste.

Except he didn't want to die. He wanted to go home.

Atlantis was home. It had been a while since he was able to call any place home.

He wanted to go home. And if he couldn't do that, he at least wanted home to survive.

Chances were, neither one was going to happen.

The cell block door moaned open, then the cell door whined open, and Alasia's head snaked through.

" Ient needs you brought in," she said, then brought the rest of herself into the cell, maneuvering beside the bed for John to reach up and take her shoulder. With her claw wing around his waist, she supported him as he slid from the bed onto weak, trembling legs.

" S'pose he told you why?" He asked, though he knew good and well what the answer would be no.

" No."

John let himself sag against Alasia as she guided him out into the corridor with its checkered floor. On entering the stairwell, his mind jumped to thoughts concerning taking a running leap into the abyss. Problem was, before he could come to a decision, they were up the stairs and in the hall, making their slow way to the lab. Alasia shoved the metal door open with her head and brought John inside. Ient was waiting, standing beside the largest of the cocoons, with Meyon lying on a metal table nearby, motionless. John's metal half was sitting on another table, barely capable of keeping itself up, and free of the robe.

Apparently, Meyon and Tin Man weren't all that identical. Tin Man's ribcage was a little more human looking, with what appeared to be transparent glass between the metal bars, exposing the organic wiring and mechanical heart within. The robot's head jerked up to look at John, and on making eye contact, both shuddered.

Alasia stopped in the middle of the room but remained standing to keep John upright. Good thing, what with John's legs trying to buckle under him.

" You're still standing," Ient said, fiddling with the various wires snaking into the cocoon. " Good. It would have been premature for you to die before this final test."

John's heart thudded. " Final test?" His pounding heart sent blood rushing to his head, and if he hadn't have been leaning against Alasia, would have dropped.

" Meyon's body is ready."

Cold shot through John, and his gaze shot to the door. Fear produced adrenaline, and if he could get enough burning through his system, could probably make it to the stairwell in time to throw himself into it before Mayon was free to feed. He tried to push away from Alasia, only to have her claw tighten around him.

" I'm sorry Mr. Sheppard," Ient said. " I really had hoped to keep you, but you're proving troublesome and I would rather not expend my time attempting to keep you alive. You'll just find some other means to destroy yourself, they all do."

John swallowed and his body shook. " Well, yeah, but not right away. I still haven't figure out a way to keep your grubby mind out of my city."

" Which leads us to the second reason I cannot keep you around. I've thought it over carefully and find killing you to be the only reasonable solution. You should consider this an honor. You are to be the first meal Meyon has had in many millenia."

John smiled drunkenly. " I'm just overflowing with pride. Can't you tell? It really has been my life long dream to be a meal for some robotic wraith bitch."

Ient's head snapped around, his eyes burning with fury. John tensed but kept the smile plastered to his face.

" Hey, I think I've got a right to say whatever I damn well please." He held up a shaky finger. " And let me tell you, the way your 'queen' likes to yammer non-stop, ten to one says you get sick of her within the hour and install a mute button just for two minutes of quiet."

Ient's eyes blazed hotter, but instead of striding toward John to give him a beating to end all beatings, he turned his back on the weakened human and resumed fiddling.

" You wish me to kill you myself, Mr. Sheppard," he said. " But I see your plan and deny it. Meyon can administer her own revenge."

His fiddling done, he went to the console and began pressing this and that. The wires leading to the cocoon glowed, as did the wires leading from Meyon to whatever lay within that cocoon. The metal body of the wraith queen shuddered then arched, jaws gaping without a sound. A minute passed, that was all, when the body dropped lifeless to the table, the head rolling to one side and the blue pinpoints fading.

Smiling grimly, Ient went to the cocoon and began peeling it apart, his body obscuring John's view. But not for long. The wraith stepped aside with hand held out. A black, clawed hand reached out and took it. A black metal body with barred ribs filled solid in between by a glass-like but flexible substance in between emerged.

Meyon's new form was both beautiful and terrifying. The shape was more feminine, with what looked to be transparent muscles around the legs, arms, and along the limber spine. The ribs actually moved, expanding and contracting, like the chest of one on a ventilator. John could see, through the transparent musculature, the mechanical heart and what he swore was mechanical lungs, but that was all in terms of organs. Her skull was smooth, without seams, with the jaw held in place by more clear muscle. And she still had teeth, long sharp teeth, and long, pointed fingers. Coupled with her madness, once Ient's fake skin was applied, Meyon would be the wickedest wraith in the Pegasus galaxy.

Blue lights flared in Meyon's eye sockets like stars. Those same eyes roved over her new body. She lifted her hand, taking her other hand from Ient after stepping from the cocoon. Her jaws parted with a hiss of glee.

" Do you like it, Meyon?" Ient asked. He took her hand, and brushed his fingers over the transparent padding on her feeding palm. " Are you hungry, Meyon?"

Meyon's head lifted to nod at Ient. Then she looked at John.

John's heart slammed, and his body shrank against Alasia. He shook his head, shaking fit to fly apart, and gripped Meyon's mane tight. " No, no, no, no, no..." he whimpered, then looked up at Alasia, begging with his eyes for her help.

Alasia did not even look at him.

" You know what to do, Mayon," whispered Ient.

Meyon's jaws clacked and her back arched like a cat bunching muscles for the spring. John released Alasia, and Alasia released him. He stumbled back, still shaking his head, heart pounding harder until he could barely breathe.

Ient's hand slipped across Meyon's smooth skull. " Feed, my queen. Feed to your heart's content."

With a hiss, Meyon pounced, bounding swiftly over the lab, fast as a cheetah and just as agile, to collide into John and bring him down to the floor. One clawed hand wrapped around his throat, and the other ripped open his shirt, then tore away the bandaging.

John didn't fight, or even struggle. This was it, he knew it, and in that brief moment, completely stopped caring. He let his arms fall splayed to his sides, and tilted his head back so he did not have to watch, nor close his eyes. He took a long, deep breath, as deep as his broken ribs would allow, just one more, then slowly exhaled.

" Just get it over with," he said.

A single claw trailed down the length of John's sternum, stinging and drawing out drops of warm blood. Then the feeding hand slammed into him in a shock wave of pain rolling across his entire ribcage. Meyon pressed in, harder and harder, until the bones creaked and the broken ones grated. John tried to gasp but his chest couldn't expand. Tears of agony slipped from the corner of his eyes, sliding down his face.

 _Let it be fast._ He prayed. _Please, let it be fast._

He didn't know what it was like to be fed off of, didn't know if the pain he was feeling was because of broken bones or because the life was being drained from him. So he didn't know what was happening. Seconds felt like hours, and John begged them to speed up.

" I feel," Meyon breathed. " Nothing."

John furrowed his brow. " What?" he whimpered.

" Nothing is happening," she said. John lifted his head up to see her eyes blazing brighter. Her claws curled, pricking the thin skin of John's chest.

" Nothing is happening!" she screamed, and raked John's chest, over and over and over, her claws going deep enough to scrape bone, as though trying to dig through John to get to what she couldn't reach. John screamed, and started struggling. His hands, even the one on the broken arm, shot up gripping Meyon's own arm in an attempt to pull it away. He squirmed, writhed, and pulled. Then Meyon jerked her arm free of John's grasp to begin pounding his chest trying to break the bone like cracking a walnut.

" Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!" She shrieked. " I cannot taste him! I cannot taste anything! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!"

John's own screaming wail melded with hers as she pounded and clawed. A copper colored body rose up behind Meyon to fall on her, scrabbling for her arms to try and pull them away. But Meyon barely broke rhythm when she reached behind her to grab Tin Man by the scrawny neck and fling him like a toothpick to the other side of the lab. The pain of the collision combined with the agony already existing in John's body had black spots marring his vision. Meyon resumed her beating of John, tightening her hold around his neck.

Then suddenly it all stopped when she was pulled away by Alasia. The creature had Meyon's leg in her mouth. Meyon clawed at the floor to mark it in John's blood, with more blood flying off in drops. She then leaped around with claws spread, hissing like a mad cat. Alasia reared away baring her fangs and hissing as well. Then she stepped aside.

Ient fell into Meyon's line of sight, and Alasia pointed a wing claw at him.

" He's the one to blame! He has failed you, again! He is the reason for your suffering! Will you stand by, and allow him to do with you as he will, as you perish from hunger!"

Meyon's dark body shook with uncontrollable rage, her bloody claws curling and her eyes flaring bright to almost blinding. " _You_ ," she hissed.

Ient, smug and silent until Alasia had begun speaking, hissed back, going rigid. " No! This is not my doing! It is a malfunction, one that I can fix. You must give me time..."

But Meyon was beyond listening. With another hiss, jaws wide, she lunged at her beloved, colliding into him with a shriek and claws raised. John, lying on his side, watched in wide eyed horror, until two claws snagged him under the armpits to lift him to his feet and turn him away to be face to face with Alasia.

" Do not watch," she said, then pulled John to her to lean against, her one claw around his waist, holding him up. John had his broken arm pressed against his stomach, and with his other hand held the ripped parts of his shirt closed over the bleeding tears in his chest. Behind him, Ient screamed, Meyon shrieked, flesh ripped and bones snapped with the resonating sound of a gunshot.

John closed his eyes, forgot what a mistake it was, and nearly dropped from the increase of pain courtesy of Tin Man's broken body. Snapping his eyes open, he rolled them to where Tin Man had crumpled, one arm bent, spine dented, and jaw hanging by one hinge. But the blue pinpoints still glowed, and John still sensed the struggling mechanical heart stuttering in the metal ribcage. John's own heart stuttered with it, and his breath kept catching with each inhale. He'd thought it had hurt to breathe before, now it was pure white-hot torment. His vision flecked with flashes of light and splotches of dark. Oblivion would have been heaven had it been able to offer escape. Not this time around.

Ient's screams died in a gurgle, and silence would have been absolute had it not been for John's ragged, uneven breathing. Then John's breathing was joined by Meyon's hiss. Alasia lowered John to the floor where he curled up protectively against his burning chest. She then stepped over him. John lifted his head, turning it as far as he could, in time to see Meyon lunge only to be caught by Alasia's wing claws and thrown against the wall as Meyon had thrown Sheppard Tin Man. Meyon's body rang out sharp against the stone, and before she could get up, Alasia pounced to begin tearing her apart in a whine of rent metal.

John's neck gave up holding his head, and lowered it back to the floor.

Meyon did not scream as she died. The rending sound of metal stopped after ten heartbeats, and silence returned strong and thick with John's breathing too shallow to shatter it. What did shatter it was the clack of Alasia's claws. Those same claws slipped beneath John's arms to gently lift him back to his feet and support him to keep him form dropping.

" It's over," she stated. John glanced over his shoulder at the pile of metal and wires leaking clear liquid. Not far from that, a pile of pale flesh, cloth, and black blood. Had John anything in his stomach, he would have puked. And he wished he could puke the way his stomach wouldn't stop roiling. He pulled his gaze from the corpses to the still living mechanism that was his other half. He could feel its pain and this proximity, piling onto his own pain trying to drive him down.

" K-kill it," he gasped, desperate for the weight to be lifted, just a little. But it made his stomach clench and his heart shrink.

It was _him. Him!_ A part of him, a missing piece of him like a jagged hole at the back of his mind and within his soul, trying to find its way back, but only getting as far as a vague whisper and the extra burden of agony he wasn't supposed to be feeling.

" I can't," Alasia said. " Not unless you still wish to die. At this range and in your condition, it would kill you as well. It will fade on its own. You only need to wait, and put distance between yourself and it."

John looked back at Alasia, hope trying to rise, but the desire to never feel the loss of it again tempering it, like going in one toe at a time to test the temperature of the water.

" Now what?" he rasped.

" I got what I wanted, so now... we may leave."

John's heart thudded painfully, and he would have dropped if Alasia hadn't been holding him up. " H-h-h-home?"

" Yes John, home."

sgasgasgasgasgasgasga

It was no simple task getting onto Alasia's broad back, even with her help. But once on, Alasia moved carefully so as not to dislodge him. He clung to her mane with one hand, and pressed his broken arm to his flayed, broken chest, leaning slightly to the side to avoid two kinds of pain. They left the lab, the bodies, and Tin Man. John didn't like it, felt it an affront to the machine that had tried to save his life, but Alasia insisted that to move it would only increase John's agony.

So they left it, and a pang of complete loneliness stabbed John's heart, stinging his eyes with tears. Alasia ambled to the stairwell, and for a brief moment John feared that she was going to dump him in the cell and leave him to die. Instead, she climbed upward, on and on into the darkness like going toward eternity. When she did stop, it came as a jolt to John. He craned his neck back to see a ladder leading to a massive metal trap door.

" Hang on," She said, and spread her wings to leap and flap upward. She pressed her head to the door, and shoved. The door groaned open, and gray light spilled down like a pillar, blinding John and forcing him to look away. Wind blasted him, cold but clean. He pulled in a lungful as far as his ribs would let him, and felt the wind whip his clothes as Alasia climbed into the endless open. John slowly opened his eyes, and gasped at the sight of a gold-touched blue sky filling his vision. His heart pounded in exuberance, and his body shook with the exhilaration of flight and freedom. He looked without an inkling fear of heights at the wide open world. They were surrounded by snow-capped mountains, the closest becoming the farthest with Alasia soaring away from it.

Ient's lab had been in a mountain, how cliché. John could almost make out the boarded windows that were easy to miss at a distance. John turned his gaze back to the front and hunkered down deeper into Alasia's whipping maze, giggling hysterically, euphoric with flight and by his still beating heart hammering wildly in his chest.

Alasia was a swift flyer, and the land passed beneath her in a blur of green and brown.

" We are not far from the ring," she called. " We should arrive at it within less than an hour."

True to her word, Alasia slowed, and on looking down John saw a familiar collection of stone formations – the ruins, the place where it all began. Alasia spiraled down gently like a falling leaf, flapping on nearing the ground to touch down with barely a jolt. She then ambled over to one of the structures – two joined walls – and crouched.

" You should stay here until your friends find you," she said. John moved inch by inch, sliding from Alasia's neck to the ground, then staggering to the corner where he slid down into a huddle, closing the rip in his shirt and pressing it to his bloody wound. He looked up at Alasia, and began trembling in trepidation.

" What if they don't come, or don't find me?"

Alasia arched her neck in order to look down at him. " They will. They have the means or Ient wouldn't have made his cullers lead them away from the mountain. Even his shields are not all that reliable. He knew your people would have the means to find his lab. But if they don't find you, I'll return at sundown of this world. And if you're still here," she shrugged, " I'll take you to an inhabited world where you can find help. But they will come. They haven't stopped searching according to Ient's last planet scan."

John huddled into the corner tighter, terrified by the thought of being left alone. Tin Man's pain was muted, but it wasn't gone. Cold was wrapped around John like a blanket, and yet a small part of him was aware that the temperature of this world was supposed to be warm. He could feel that warmth brushing his skin, but finding no way in.

John gave Alasia an imploring look. " Can't you stay? Just a little longer? Until they come? I won't let them hurt you. You could even come with us."

Alasia snaked her head around to look away. " I'd prefer not to be in the company of humans. Besides, this body doesn't have much longer to go. A few more years, then it will die. Might as well make good use of it while I can, do some traveling, breathe clean air. I've lived long enough and I'm quite ready to depart mortality. Being around humans..." she shook her head. " It's bad enough being around one human. Reminds me of what it was like." She then snorted caustically with mouth curling upward in a grim, bitter smile. " I don't even recall what I looked like. Pretty. I remember someone – a friend, maybe, someone I loved – saying I was pretty. That's all."

" You're still human inside," John said.

Alasia's head arched back to facing him, and the bitter smile softened to turn sad. " There was a time I would have believed that."

John straightened, ignoring the pain it caused him. " But you are. You saved my life."

" But I would have let you die," she countered. John furrowed his brow, sagging when he could not longer handle the aches.

Alasia looked up, her gaze distant and pensive, staring to the horizon and beyond. " I have let others die." She then returned to looking at John. " You asked me once why I didn't just leave. And you're right, I could have, very easily. I could have torn Ient to shreds myself, ripped his head off with my mouth, and I wanted to. Oh how I wanted to. But it wasn't enough. Not for me. I needed him to do more than suffer for what he put me through, I needed him to fail. And I needed to punish myself for being stupid enough to worship a race of murderers. But I only made it worse, allowed others to die around me, and I let them in order to wait for the perfect moment, the perfect revenge. And that was through Meyon. I made sure that, every time a new body was created, the feeding apparatus malfunctioned. And I waited, waited, and waited as Meyon's madness grew. And I did nothing to help anyone, because if I did, Ient would have found out what I was up to. Not that anyone I tried to help would have gotten very far. Ient would have found them with his cullers."

Alasia sighed. " And now I got what I wanted. And yet I feel no different. No better, no worse. But at least it's over. I just might as well have ended it sooner, saved many more from the pain... saved you from the pain."

John caught the shimmering in her eyes where moisture flooded until it ran over. Just one small tear flashing in the daylight. She reached out with a wingclaw and touched it to the side of John's face. He flinched in surprise at the feel of warm, velvet furred flesh rather than cold leather and – especially – cold metal.

" I was human once," she said as another tear fell. " Don't become like me John. Don't let this change you. Don't let it eat you alive until nothing human is left."

She removed the claw, then backed away, turning to launch herself into the air and veer heading in the direction of the gate. John felt the press of air from her wings and she passed in close over head.

He was alone, completely, shivering with cold while surrounded by warm air. He was free, and didn't know what to think of it, what to feel. It was as though it wasn't supposed to be, making him think that any moment he would awake to Meyon's screams, even now still echoing in his skull. So John huddled tighter, and prayed with all he had that this was real.

SGA

" Major, land the jumper," McKay snapped, almost yelling. But Lorne was already a step ahead having seen the same image on the jumper's own LSD. The culling device forgotten for the moment, Major Lorne eased the jumper to the ground just outside the ruins, while on the HUD a white dot pulsed.

" Could be a trap," Ronon warned.

Rodney's tongue flicked over his lips but never took his eyes from that dot. " Probably. In which case, be prepared to fire at anything darting around in the air." They were taking a big risk checking this out, Rodney knew, but he was beyond the point of not caring. They were only halfway through week three and Caldwell was pressuring Elizabeth to call off the search. Time was even more the enemy now, and right now Rodney would take any kind of new discovery, even a white dot that was nothing more than bait to lure them in. At least having more people vanish might get Caldwell to reconsider.

When the jumper touched down, Ronon and Teyla went immediately to the rear hatch to take positions on either side as the bay doors hummed open. The HUD screen vanished, and McKay clapped Lorne on the arm.

" Stay here in case we need to make a quick getaway."

Lorne eyed him witheringly. " Uh, maybe you should stay here. You've got the gene and I'm better with a gun... no offense."

" And you're also better in a jumper. Major, if you haven't already figured out, I'm not good under pressure. The last time I panicked while piloting a jumper I couldn't get it off the ground. So do us all favor and save our lives by staying here."

He didn't give Lorne the chance to respond. Yanking his own LSD from the pocket of his jacket and his scanner from the other pocket, he rushed to the rear hatch, stopping several inches from the opening to take readings. So far, the only energy signature being picked up was from the jumper.

" All right, nothing unforetold so far. Xena, Chewie – warriors first."

Ronon narrowed his eyes at McKay before departing. " The movie references are getting a little old, McKay." Then he stepped out.

" For your information," Rodney called, " Xena was a TV show." He then shook his head. " He's been hanging around Sheppard too much."

Ronon and Teyla entered the ruins moving their weapons in a 180 degree arch. Rodney kept behind them, calling out directions to steer them to where the owner of the LSD dot was located.

That location was behind two joined walls that was more easily pictured as having once been a building than the rest of these rock piles. Teyla and Ronon each pressed their backs to one of the walls. With a nod to eachother, they whipped around with weapons out. No gun fire followed.

" Dr. McKay!" Teyla cried. McKay rushed around the wall trying to pull his nine mil from his thigh holster, assuming backup was needed. He stopped on seeing Ronon and Teyla's own weapons lowered. Not just lowered, dangling from one hand at their sides. Gaping, with brow wrinkled, Rodney came around to where they stood and turned to face the wall.

McKay stumbled back three steps. " Holy... what the... crap!"

His first thought was that they had stumbled onto a corpse, except that corpses don't show up on LSDs, and don't shiver.

It was the hair that was the give away, always the hair, dark and spiked. Sheppard was curled upright in the corner where the two walls joined, one arm against his stomach, and one hand gripping his blood-soaked shirt. He was a mess of blood, dirt, and dark, vicious looking bruises glaringly bright against his colorless face. And he was so thin, like a bundle of dry and brittle twigs, where the slightest touch could break a bone in two, or shatter him into fragments like glass. He stared at the three through wide sunken eyes, uncertain but trying not to be, frightened but not necessarily at them.

Teyla was the first to move and test the reason behind John's fear. As she approached, moving slow as though approaching a wild animal, John's eyes moved with her. She knelt before him, and John still had yet to freak and try to bolt. She reached out to him, and John stiffened, sucking in a short breath. He was struggling not to move, McKay could see it. The man was fighting his own fear. But when Teyla touched his face at the jaw, he cringed with an increase in the shivering.

" It is all right," she breathed. John swallowed, blinking rapidly, and nodded. McKay released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Then John opened his mouth. " I-I-I don't feel so good," he timidly said in a small, hoarse voice. He looked from Teyla to Ronon to Rodney, and back to Teyla. " C-can we go home now?" His tone wasn't that of a military commander giving an order and hiding it behind a sarcastic request. It was a honest question, as though his team were the ones calling the shots, not him, and he was asking for permission.

Teyla removed her hand from John's face and attempted to take his hand gripping his shirt to clasp in her own. Except that he wouldn't let her, and clung to his shirt as though it were a matter of life and death. So she simply let her hand rest on top of his. " Yes, John, we can go home now."

John nodded again, then braced his back against the wall and began to rise. Teyla tried to aid him by putting her hand on his elbow. He jerked away with a hiss of pain that had Teyla snatching her hand back.

" Colonel, I'm sorry..."

He shook his head but didn't say anything. Once up, he pushed away from the wall to go staggering toward Rodney and Ronon. Ronon stepped forward, placing his hand lightly on John's back, only to have him stiffen and cry out brokenly, turning away.

" D-don't... please?" he begged, and the desperation stabbed at Rodney's heart. John had stopped moving, breathing and wincing through the pain, starting up again when it passed. Rodney gulped and moved toward John.

" At least..." he stammered, reaching out to John without touching him. " At least lean against one of us. Can you do that?"

John stopped and looked at Rodney for a moment, apparently thinking this over. He then nodded, and Ronon came up beside him, letting the weakened and wounded man use Ronon's stronger body as support. John winced but did not pull away.

They made their agonizingly slow way to the jumper with John limping and shambling like an old man, back curved and shoulders hunched in as though he were freezing, and for all Rodney knew he was. But if a light touch on the back caused him pain, Rodney didn't want to know what a jacket would do.

On entering the jumper, John kept going until he came to the edge of the bench. With one shoulder braced against the wall, he slid down it onto the seat, then brought his legs up to return to huddling. From the cockpit, Lorne watched wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Teyla sat beside John, and Ronon across from him. John was still trembling, definitely from pain, probably still from cold, and Rodney couldn't stand watching him freeze. He reached into one of the overhead compartments and pulled down a blanket. He unfolded it, spread it, then went over to John, kneeling in front of him.

" Colonel. I'm going to put this around you. You tell me if it hurts, all right? and I'll stop."

John nodded. With Teyla's help, they carefully place the blanket around John's shoulders, then down his back when he leaned forward enough to allow them to. They brought it around to the front, and Teyla held it in place since John refused to release his shirt or move his other arm. Rodney turned to Lorne, giving him the go ahead nod. Lorne returned it, closed the rear hatch, and got the jumper underway.

Rodney backed up until he was sitting on the opposite bench next to Ronon. Rodney stared at John, and John stared at Rodney. He was still wide-eyed, uncertain, oozing fear and exhaustion. Then he blinked, and a solitary tear rolled down his face into the dark, thick stubble forming a beard.

" You found me," he whispered. The three team members exchanged relieved looks. Teyla, smiling, looked at John.

" We never stopped looking."

John's eyes glimmered and more tears fell, rolling fast as though racing eachother. His features altered, fear taking over completely, and he shrank into the corner.

" I was going to give up," he whispered. The words sent a thrill of cold shock down Rodney's back.

John's breathing, though still shallow, came faster and more labored. " Oh, gosh... I was ready to give up. I-I was..."

McKay knew what this was. John was having a panic attack, and in his condition it would probably kill him. But there was little they could do since every touch caused him pain.

Teyla knew. She began running her hand through his hair, caressing his head that had yet to elicit any cries of pain from him, while at the same time speaking soft, gentle words to him.

" John, it is all right. You did not give up or you would not be here. We do not fault you for it. Please, it is all right. Just take deep breaths, as deep as you can without causing pain. You are all right now, you are safe..."

McKay heard, like background noise, Lorne talking to Atlantis, telling them to bring a medical team to the jumper bay. In the next instant, they were in the gate, racing through the wormhole, and merging on the other side within the confines of Atlantis. The jumper rose up to the bay, and the moment it stopped, the doors opened to reveal Beckett and team already arriving. Beckett boarded first with a nurse following but the rest hanging back. Neither McKay, Ronon, or Teyla moved, not really being in the way since they were sitting on the bench, and not wanting to leave John so soon after his near panic.

Beckett knelt before John, already placing his stethoscope to his ears and looking up into the bruised and tear-stained face of the broken pilot.

" What are his injuries?" Beckett asked, opening the blanket and carefully removing it to hand to his nurse.

" We do not know," Teyla replied. " He would not let us touch him. It caused him pain when we tried."

Beckett nodded without ever taking his eyes from Sheppard's face. " Sheppard, lad, I know you're hurting a lot right now, but I need to see what's causing that hurt, and if there's anythin' pressin' we need to deal with now before movin' ya to the infirmary. Ya understand son?"

John nodded, but didn't move. Rodney noticed with a blanch that John's hand clutching his shirt was covered in blood to match his soaked shirt front. Carson gripped John's wrist and pulled at the hand until it jerked free. The other arm Beckett touched lightly but did not move.

" That broken son?" Carson asked.

John nodded. " Th-think so," he whispered.

Carson pulled lightly at the collar of the shirt, only to have the shirt split and fall open to either side. Beckett pushed the two haves aside, and his head reared back.

" Bloody freakin' hell," he breathed, his face paling. Rodney leaned a little to the side, and blanched again with gut roiling.

John's chest was a mess of blood and tissue deep gashes that Rodney could have sworn was showing bone in places. Blood continued to ooze out down his chest, visible ribs, and over his sunken stomach. Beckett reached out behind him to have several pads of gauze placed in his hand by the nurse.

" Son, what happened?" Carson asked.

Panting, shuddering, John gulped audibly. " Sh-she was hungry," he replied in a small, terrified voice McKay had never once heard come out of John before. " B-but she couldn't feed. She was mad. She... she started – digging. Sh-she wanted my heart, I think. She was digging for it." His eyes pooled again, rewetting his face with another deluge. " She – um – she was beating on me, and digging. And I let her. Oh, gosh, I was going to let her feed! I was giving up...!" he then cried out when Carson pressed the gauze to his chest. He doubled over, trying to pull away and cram himself further into the corner.

" John, John! Easy son, it's all right. Let me get you a sedative and..."

John's head snapped up, eyes wide enough to rip and wild with terror. " No! No, please, no! Don't let me sleep, please! I-it's worse. It's worse when I sleep, please don't let me sleep." He wasn't just shedding tears now – he was all out sobbing, begging, and shaking hard enough to snap his own bones while trying to shrink away from Carson.

" Please, don't," he whimpered, calming down enough to catch his breath.

Carson took John's bloody hand and squeezed it in reassurance. " John, calm down lad. I won't. It's all right, I won't sedate you. Can I at least give you something for the pain?"

At this, John nodded, and Carson relaxed, smiling wanly. " All right then. That'll do for now. Let's get you to the infirmary."

They got him on a gurney and into the infirmary where Carson drew the line at the rest of the team following. Two nurses cut away the remains of the shirt, and Carson placed a sheet over John before removing the pants. During that time, a third nurse wiped away the blood around the wound on the chest. It was a massive wound, bone deep at the sternum, with some gashes extending from the collar bone to the bottom most rib. The suture pattern was going to be interesting when they were done.

For the time being, they covered the wound with pads of gauze in order to wheel him into X-ray. Chest, legs, arm, skull, and they were done, wheeling him back out to return focus to the gashes and other wounds such as the four claw marks on his back, the bruising around his throat, and a myriad of bruising all over his malnourished body - some shapeless, and some shaped like either hands or boot prints. I.V.s were hoked up for medication, dehydration, and blood loss.

All the while as Carson went through the motions, John remained the cooperative patient, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. If pain was caused, he might let out a small broken moan or whimper, but had yet to say anything. So it took Carson a moment to register John's growing distress, starting in muscles going too rigid until they were like rock, then escalating to fast breathing and an increase in heart rate when Carson did a secondary listen to John's heart and lungs, unable to set up the heart monitor just yet until the chest wound was taken care of. And he'd been shaking since Carson saw him on the jumper, so it wasn't as though that was much of a give away.

Carson placed his hand lightly on John's bruised shoulder and leaned in toward his face without sacrificing John's personal space. John returned Carson's concerned gaze with his own frightened one, but still said nothing. He was disoriented, Carson knew that without needing proof. From lack of food was obvious, and Carson knew the signs of sleep deprivation when he saw them. The noise and the proximity of so many were scaring the hell out of John, and yet in true Sheppard fashion he remained quiet about it, choosing to fight it rather than give way to what he considered weakness. It was an act of scrounging for self control, which he'd been more than likely denied during his capture, so Carson wouldn't fault him on it, or say anything about it.

" John, relax son, we're almost done," he said instead, then dismissed several nurses since one or two could handle things just as well from here on in. With the hectic activity slowing down several notches, Carson felt the muscles in John's shoulder shudder out of their taut pull, and his breathing descend.

When the X-rays arrived, Carson left the suturing to Anna, a woman well into her forties, and who was a natural when it came to any kind of thread. When it came to applying sutures, Carson tended to rely on her the most for either doing the job or completing it when Carson couldn't. He took the X-ray envelope from the tech and went to the light board to look them over. What he saw made his heart break for poor John. A complete break just above the wrist, a twisted ankle, wrenched shoulder, broken collarbone, and his entire ribcage shattered. It was a miracle none of the breaks had punctured anything. Hell, it was a miracle John could even breathe. What wasn't broken clean through was cracked in more than one place. Even the breast bone was webbed in small hairline cracks. The only ribs not affected were the floaters.

Yet nothing was punctured, and he had found no present indications of internal bleeding, though he would keep careful watch for the signs since bleeders had a way of hiding.

Finished with the perusal of John's bones, Carson went back to his patient and took over the suturing.

Carson found it odd having John watching him as he closed the wounds. The usual song and dance was for John to be unconscious either on his own volition or because he was sedated. He could feel John's gaze, and seemed unable to help but return it off and on. The pilot was exhausted but fighting it with the tenacity of a pit bull so that not even his eye lids dare slide close.

But other than that display of stubborn resolve, there wasn't much about John at the moment that was very 'John'. Worn out, that was John now, like an old glove, and scared. And it was an unusual kind of scared, one of wariness, of trepidation like a man waiting for the announcement of his execution. Or perhaps more of waiting for the one who'd tried to dig a hole in his chest to come barreling through the doors. And he wouldn't stop shaking.

When the wounds were closed and bandaged, Carson, with the help of Anna and another nurse, aided John in raising up enough so they could bind his ribs. After that, Anna wiped away more dirt and grime from Sheppard's upper body and his face, including a shave to see what further bruising lay beneath. Cuts were cleansed and disinfected, John's arm was bound in a cast, a gown was placed over his emaciated body, and the same casted arm was placed in a sling to allow the collarbone to heal. And with all said and done, blankets were layered over John, pulled up to his chest.

And all that time, he didn't say a thing.

" John," Carson said as he adjusted the blankets. " What happens when you sleep?" Something incomprehensibly terrible, obviously, or John would have been out a long time ago.

John's head turned away, his body shrank down further into the blankets, and he said in a small, distant voice. " It hurts."

Carson's instinct was to sedate John. He needed to sleep or he would never heal. Yet just thinking about it gave him the impression of an impatient father dragging a terrified child back to his dark, lonely room after rushing out screaming of monsters. Only in John's case, there really had been monsters.

The only other alternative was to get John to talk about what happened, find the culprit for this fear, and hope that assurances that the fear was nothing to cling to would ease John enough to let Carson sedate him. Carson's only concern was that it felt too soon to get John talking. Many wounds had come about over a period of time, but the one on his chest was fresh, from today, and Carson couldn't say how talking about it this early would affect John. Most likely make his distress worse, no doubt.

But Carson had to try _something_.

Carson turned to get a stool, but didn't go far when he felt a tug on his lab coat. Turning back, he started on seeing John wide-eyed, panting, and back to shivering.

" Where are you going?" he asked, voice heavy on the desperation. Beckett's mouth gaped but it took a moment for words to form.

" Uh... I was... Just going to get a stool to sit on."

John's hand dropped limply from Carson's coat. " But you're coming back?"

Carson took John's hand and placed it back beneath the covers. " Aye lad. Seein' as how you're in no mood to sleep, I thought we might have a bit of a talk as to why."

John pulled his eyes from Beckett to the infirmary doors. " Maybe I should tell everyone."

Carson's body buzzed with alarm. He expected a one on one conversation to be bad enough, but to have so many present... Carson shook his head.

" I don't think that's a good idea, lad. I don't want ya overwhelmed."

" Then just McKay. He'll get this stuff."

Carson was about to ask 'what stuff' but since was about to hear the full story eventually, bit back the words. He was satisfied with that arrangement, and after assuring John that he'd be back, went out the infirmary to find John's team plus Elizabeth waiting as expected. The little kitten sized, fox-faced, big eared, lemur tailed rodent John had named Sherbet was bounding around McKay's legs, yeeping happily, his bright orange, yellow, and red body blinding against the subdued coloring of the Atlantis floor.

The group was tense and expectant, so Carson cut right to the chase. " I can't stay long," he said, " so I'll make this quick. He's got a broken arm, collarbone, twisted ankle, and more breaks and cracks in his ribs than one would think possible. Extensive bruising but no internal bleeding or punctures, making him one rather lucky bugger. I'm treatin' him for blood loss and possible infections, and as of this moment he's still conscious and refuses to sleep or even let me sedate him. Now, here's the deal. He wants to talk about what happened, but given that it was so bloody recent and how weak he is at the moment, I'm only lettin' him speak to Rodney and myself. Myself in case he gets overwhelmed and Rodney since that's who he requested. So Rodney, I suggest you take notes so you can relay what he says to the rest. My hope is that by getting him to talk, we can determine what's keeping him from sleep and try to remedy it. Until then, I don't want him havin' too many visitors. So if he still refuses to sleep, whatever the reason, then we'll see about arrangin' some sort of schedule. But we need to be careful until we can sort this all out. And no arguments otherwise."

Everyone nodded in agreement, while Ronon simply grunted his displeasure.

Elizabeth, her arms folded over her chest tightly, turned to a suddenly nervous Rodney. " Tell us everything he tells you," she said.

Rodney nodded stiffly, looking like a man about to enter a prison and speak with the worst of all the inmates, not an infirmary to visit his weak and frightened friend.

Carson led the way, Rodney followed, and Sherbet shot past both to leap onto the bed and begin sniffing around John's person.

" Oh bloody crap, Rodney, will you get that little bugger out of here!"

John pulled his hand from beneath the blankets to flop it down on Sherbet's tiny body. Sherbet arched to squirm from beneath the limpid hand, turned, and began nudging at it for more. " He's all right," John croaked. And Carson had to admit, Sherbet's affect was astounding. John looked relaxed - still worried, still nervous, but with a small smile tugging at his lips.

Plus Sherbet wasn't stupid. He stayed along the edge of the bed rather than scurry all over John's chest like he normally did. Carson sighed.

" Fine. But if that hairball so much as makes you wince, he's out of here."

John inclined his head in a nod of agreement, watching Sherbet in tired fascination as the creature tried to bury itself under John's hand. Carson brought over two stools, setting Rodney's on the right and his own on the left. Rodney, being unnaturally silent for once, sat hesitantly, fidgeting with the pen and notepad he'd dug out of his pocket. Carson sympathized with him. Even cleaned up and shaved, John still looked horrible with his bone-angled face splotched by bruising of various shades and stages. John didn't just _look_ frail and helpless, he _was_ frail and helpless.

John moved his eyes from Sherbet to Rodney. " Hey McKay," he said. " You look tired."

McKay rapidly drummed the pen against the pad. " I could use a nap, but nothing I'm not used to." He then shifted to stifle a squirm. " So, uh, Carson here says you want to talk?"

John nodded. Rodney shifted again, twirling the pen between his fingers. " All right then, I'll listen."

John's eyes flicked between both men uncertainly. " Where do I start?"

" Um, at the beginning?" Rodney replied. At first Carson took it to be sarcasm, and felt it a little too soon for any of that. But glancing at Rodney, he found the physicist looking just as nervous and uncertain as John.

Again John nodded then cleared his throat. " Uh... I woke up... in a cell. Alone. Hey, did you know wraith have names?"

Carson mirrored Rodney's expression of discomfort when they both exchanged looks.

" Um, no," Rodney said.

" Yeah, they do. Not normal names like Bob or Steve or anything. This one's name was Ient..."

Rodney held up his hand. " Wait, hold up, so you were taken by a wraith?"

John jerked his head in a nod. " Yeah. His name was Ient."

Rodney looked at Carson, and without saying anything pointed the pen at John's chest.

" Didn't look like a feeding wound," Carson replied to the nonverbal question.

John's hand lifted shakily away from Sherbet to momentarily touch his own chest lightly. " Ient didn't do this. Meyon did."

" And Meyon is?" asked Rodney.

The trembling in John's hand increased, and bringing the rest of his body in on it. " Ient's girlfriend."

Rodney narrowed his eyes and resumed tapping his pen on the pad. " So now you're telling me that wraith fall in love?"

John dropped his hand back to the bed and proceeded to waggle his fingers for Sherbet to paw at. " If you want to call it that. Personally I thought it more psychotic, obsessive, deadly infatuation." John then started laughing in a way that made both men squirm. " And by deadly I mean freakin' deadly."

He then told them everything in broken, meandering fragments, only keeping on track when Rodney or Carson asked the right questions. And the more John told, the more Carson's heart tried to shrink in on itself, and the more color drained from Rodney's face. John talked of robots, of stealing consciousness and transferring it to other bodies, which Carson couldn't deny as possible in retrospect of what had occurred with Lt. Cadman and Rodney after being rescued from a cull. John told them of Ient's obsession to create Meyon the ultimate shell to reside in forever, how he beat John for so much as thinking one ill though about Meyon, of Meyon's eternal hunger and the madness it caused, what Meyon did to John, and how Ient's failure had cost both wraith their lives. He told about Alasia, her revenge, how she had saved John, and how she had once been human. Then John told – in a broken, verging on hysterical voice – about having half of himself ripped from his mind and stuck in a machine, and why.

And how that machine was still alive.

" I'm still in there," John coughed, eyes red and watering, body shuddering, and wild laughter trying to burst from his throat. " I'm still in there, and it's still alive. I start to feel it, see what it sees, every time I close my eyes. But if I sleep, I'll feel it, it's pain. I'll be alone. So I can't sleep. Not yet, not until it's... not working anymore. Then I can sleep, and then it won't hurt."

John gave Carson an imploring, almost pleading look. " Just a little longer. Then it'll be over and I can sleep. I promise. But I can't yet... It hurts to sleep."

Swallowing hard, Carson nodded, clenching his hands to fists to stop them from shaking. " Aye, lad. I understand. We'll wait, but we can't wait for too long. You're too weak to deny your body sleep. It'll make you sick."

" It won't be long," John pressed. " Not long."

Carson placed his hand carefully on John's shoulder. " All right John. It's all right. No sedation, no urging you to sleep. We'll wait this bloody thing out. And I think that's enough talkin' for now. Let me have a few word with Rodney, then I'll back and sit with ya for a bit. All right?"

John nodded.

The two men left John with Sherbet, with the creature curled up and sleeping against John's hip. When sufficiently out of ear shot, the two started speaking in low voices.

" Is there no way we can find this bloody machine and shut it off?"

Rodney lifted both hands then dropped them. " Maybe, but there were a lot of energy readings on that planet. We could send a team to find this place, see if they can't get to the robot and find an off switch. But I don't want to do that if they can't find one and think shooting it will work just as well. We don't know what that might do to Sheppard. I say we wait a little longer. If he's not sleeping beauty by tomorrow night, then we find the thing and try to encourage it to die faster without taking John with it. But you know better than me that the way he is now, if we do something to that robot that he ends up seeing and feeling, that it might kill him."

Carson sighed heavily, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. " Aye, but so will denying himself proper rest. I suppose we should wait for now, but if things start getting desperate, I want that bloody robot found and dealt with in a way that won't harm the Colonel."

" Definitely," Rodney replied. He then let out a sharp breath and turned to face the infirmary door. " All right then, time to tell these folks a little horror story." Rodney stepped out, and the door whispered shut behind him. Carson turned to return to his patient, who brightened and relaxed on seeing the Highland doc coming back.


	4. Part 4

Part 4

Direct line of sight let John see it all – two bodies of two different makes, piled shapelessly on a stone cold floor. The metal one remained untouched with the bent black jaws still gaping at him minus the blue lights for eyes. The organic body was going through further disturbing changes. Long, segmented bodied creatures like obsidian centipedes were squeezing out of the cracks and chinks in the floor to crawl over the mess of pale flesh splashed with dark blood. They swarmed the body in a cacophony of clicking appendages until nothing of the pale flesh could be seen, just a mass of writhing worm-shapes gradually shrinking as they inhaled the remains.

John would have been sickened to the point of puking if it hadn't been for the pain. His jaw, arm, back – excruciating beyond comprehension. He wanted to scream, but all that came out was a squeak like an out of tune violin. It hurt so much. His mechanical heart stumbled in his chest, pounding, slowing, then jolting as though uncertain as to what it wanted to do. It was trying to hold on, because survival instincts told it to. The need for the pain to end made it falter. So it danced like a drunkard, and kept the connection alive and strong.

Until John woke up gasping until his ribs screamed, then released it on a sob that had tears soaking the area of the pillow around his head.

SGA

Rodney tried the sleep thing, got maybe two hours before waking up from a dream in which they found John's dried wraith-sucked husk curled against the wall, gave up on sleep, and went to the lab to take the mini-culler apart and see what else made it tick. But since his mind wasn't in it, it became mostly busy work to pass the time until he finally reached the point where he couldn't take it any more.

That left only one more destination, the one he'd been trying to avoid. Not that he didn't want to see John, he just didn't want to see John in his current state. He'd planned to drop by after John had finally gotten some sufficient winks and his mind was more stable. But that was being selfish, Rodney knew it, and was starting to hate himself for it.

It was hard, though, this time around especially so. John was home, safe, and being cared for, and he was still suffering, which was all the more reason for Rodney to visit John in order to offer support. Yet twistedly enough, it was the same reason the thought of going made Rodney's stomach twist. He was right there, right in front of Rodney, and Rodney still couldn't do a damn thing to help ease his friend's agony. And the only thing he could think of to do that 'might' help might also make things worse. So all and all, going in to see John meant having to witness his ongoing torture, like watching a man drowning and not going out to pull him in, and that made Rodney feel like scum. Ten times the scum when John started trying to assure him that it was okay, it wasn't Rodney's fault, and there was nothing to be done about it.

He went to visit with John anyways. Carson was insistent that moral support from friends did more than anyone realized, and Rodney was going to just have to take his word for it or get crushed under all this guilt.

On entering the infirmary, McKay found it to be dimly lit, probably for Sheppard's sake. The man in question had his head turned so that Rodney was unable to see his face. The blankets were a mess, crumpled down to his waist, with one leg uncovered. Each of John's inhalations were fast and shallow, and on each exhale his chest shuddered. Sherbet was rubbing up and down along his arm, making small purring sounds.

McKay hurried over and began adjusting the blankets back over John's wayward leg, the one with the wrapped ankle. He tugged at the front of the blanket mound, his knuckles brushing John's sharply protruding ribs, and Rodney recoiled momentarily with a disturbed shudder. On maneuvering John's uninjured arm back beneath the blanket, he felt the solidity of remaining muscles twitching with tension, and wondered with a shock of fear if he was hurting John.

" Hey, Sheppard," Rodney whispered. " You all right? I-I'm not hurting you or anything..." Rodney craned his neck to see some of John's face, and caught a glimpse of the Colonel's wide and terrified left eye vivid being sunken and surrounded by bruised, shadowed flesh. John took a quick breath, but his chest still shuddered when it was released.

" I..." he croaked, swallowed, and continued. " Fell asleep."

Rodney gulped in sympathy and concern. He placed his hand lightly on Sheppard's shoulder, and felt the man's mild tremors. " Sorry to hear that. But you're awake now."

" Where is everyone?" John asked in a small, timid voice. " There was a nurse, but she wasn't here when I woke up."

McKay released John's shoulder to sit in the stool where said nurse should have been sitting. " Probably took off assuming you were out cold. I promise to chew Beckett out so he can chew her out in return.

John slipped his shaking hand out from under the covers and rubbed his face, afterwards turning his head to look at Rodney. The weak limb hadn't done squat in removing the evidence of recent tears. " Will you stay?" he asked, again in that same timid manner that made Rodney's heart twist instead of his stomach. If John had an alter ego, then Rodney was seeing it now – from no backing down, leave no one behind, gun blazing Air Force Colonel to lost, broken little kid. He even looked smaller, but one tended to look smaller when one lost weight with no weight to lose in the first place.

" Well, seeing as how for once I don't have all that much to do, I think I can stay for a while."

John visibly relaxed, sinking further into the bed and his breathing normalizing. " Thanks." Sherbet climbed up onto the pillow, turning three times before plopping down with his tiny head resting on John's sharp shoulder.

Rodney cleared his throat, trying to muster up some small talk. Except he didn't want to do the idle chatter dance. A question had been nagging him for some time, and since keeping John awake was the goal here – and the only way Rodney knew how to help – in depth discussions over serious matters seemed the best way to go.

As long as it didn't make things worse.

" Um... Not that I want to dredge up any bad memories – and if you don't want to talk about it I completely understand..." a first for Rodney, and even he realized that. In truth he wanted answers, but not at the cost of furthering John's pain. " But um... back in the jumper, you were kind of freaking out. You kept going on about giving up, how you were about to. Seemed to kind of scare the hell out of you. I was just kind of – uh – curious as to what that was all about."

John's nervous eyes flicked to the ceiling, and his throat moved in a swallow. " I didn't mean to."

Rodney's brow furrowed, and irritation prickled under his skin unbidden. " Mean to give up? I didn't know there was such a thing as accidentally giving up in the first place."

John closed his eyes wearily, only to snap them open quickly with a quiet gasp. " That's not what I meant."

" We were trying to find you, we really were. And I'm sorry it was taking so long but we didn't have much to work with from the start..."

" Rodney," John said as forcefully as he could, only to have it come out sounding as worn out as he looked. " Cut me some slack here, I can barely think as it is. I knew you were looking for me and held on pretty good as long as I kept that in mind. Then Ient breaks the news that you wouldn't be coming any time soon because he was leading you guys on a wild goose chase. Don't you remember me telling you that?"

" No."

Now it was John furrowing his brow, then looking up at Rodney a little sheepishly. " I didn't?"

Rodney shook his head. " Not that I recall."

John looked away, then back to Rodney. " Oh. Well, yeah, that's what he told me. After that it was a little hard hanging on to hope. I mean, I tried, but..." he swallowed again. " You don't know what it was like there, Rodney." John's voice faltered in a desperate waver as he pushed for understanding. " What Ient was doing, what he was going to do. Death was kind of the best option at the time. If he hadn't of decided to let Meyon try to feed on me, then he was going to keep me around for further experimentation. The thing was he had to kill me because if he didn't he knew I would try to stop him from taking one of you guys and ripping out a big chunk of your mind to stick in that robot. And I would have tried to stop him even if it meant..." John's eyes moved everywhere except back to Rodney. " That... we couldn't escape and had to - um – die... at the same time."

Rodney's eyes rounded over. " You mean you were going to kill whoever Ient took to use as the spy."

John turned his head enough in order to focus on Sherbet's sleeping form. " If it absolutely, positively came down to that... To save Atlantis."

" Even if that someone was me? Or Teyla? what about Dr. Weir? Ronon... he'd probably be okay with it but..." Cold fear radiated from Rodney's chest. " Oh gosh, what if it had been me?"

John didn't say anything, but he didn't need to the way his eyes started tearing up. Rodney's instinct was to rant and rave over how John could even possibly think of doing such a thing. His friend's expression of growing anguish and shame shoved that desire to the dark places of Rodney's mind. The man had killed his own CO in order to protect earth. He did what it took to protect, made sacrifices where he had to, so it was only natural that he would consider such a morbid option. John was right, Rodney didn't know what it had been like, what John had gone through even with John having talked about it.

Rodney was relieved he never had to make such decisions, but it sickened him that John did. No one should have to go through torment only to have that kind of a burden dumped on the shoulders to crush and mangle.

" I didn't know what else to do." John's quiet voice startled Rodney from his thoughts. John sniffed, sighed, and wiped his eye with the heel of his hand. " I didn't want to die. And I definitely didn't want to kill anyone. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted it to stop."

Rodney had never been good in matters of comfort, but neither was he overwhelmed by the need to bust out of the room before the emotional flooding went above head level. Actually, he found himself wanting to stay for as long as it took, and at least attempt the comfort thing, even if he did suck at it, because it was all he could think to do for his friend.

" Well... Yeah. I mean, who wouldn't? But it's over now... Or at least it will be. You should probably try to focus more on that."

John fell silent for a moment, turning his eyes and his head to stare up at the ceiling. " I don't know if I can take any more."

" What, of not being able to sleep? You know, we can look for Ient's place, try to find a way to shut the robot down without causing you any problems..."

John shook his head, then lifted his limp hand to gesture weakly. " I meant this. Going through the Stargate, ending up here afterwards. Future captures, future tortures... future Ients. Crap Rodney, I knew I was going to die. Not figured, not considered – I _knew._ And I was ready for it. I wanted it to happen. I let Meyon try to feed on me. Not that I could have stopped her otherwise, but I didn't even try. I just gave up. And I still can't get over the fact that I'm not dead right now." John coughed out a half-laugh, half-sob touched with the slightly hysterical. " Life came as a surprise. Can you believe it? It shocked the hell out of me that I was still breathing. I was freakin' giving up. Since when the hell have I ever given up?"

Rodney shrugged uneasily. " Since you ran out of options. Look, everyone has a breaking point. You reached yours is all. As a practicing pessimist, I can tell you that it gets kind of hard to hold onto hope when there doesn't seem to be much hope left to hold onto. And for you to have a tough time at holding on... well... that's kind of saying a lot. I can't even imagine..." Rodney shook his head and flicked his tongue over his dry lips. " Calling it hell probably wouldn't cut it. Too cliché. So anyone who faults you – _you,_ Lt. Colonel 'think positive' - for losing hope is an idiot."

" I had no reason to lose hope."

" You didn't know that. But now you do. Live and learn, and keep on living. You're alive, and you really do need to focus on that."

John lifted his hand to his face to rub it, closed his eyes, but snapped them back open with a gasp, dropping his hand to the bed with a muffled thump. " I don't ever want to go through that again – losing hope like that. I actually preferred Ient's beatings to that." John rolled his head in Rodney's direction. " I don't think I could take it."

Rodney gaped at John's desperation and fear, but his alarm immediately morphed into anger. " So you're still giving up?" Rodney wheedled. " After surviving all that, knowing there's always something to hope for, you're still going to call it quits? Apparently you haven't learned a damn thing. You can't just quit! That would be like... Ient winning. Or all the wraith. Or Koyla. Hell, every bad guy we ever met. You can't let them do this to you, Colonel. You're letting what happened to you dictate your life. And since when did you ever give in to being told what to do?"

John let out a long, slow breath. His eyes shimmered, and Rodney saw in them the longing to close, just for a minute. Rodney had never seen John look so defeated before – defeated period - and it both frightened and angered him. But that anger wasn't directed at John, but at every low life and nut-job who had ever hurt John in the name of pride, retribution, or sadism. It made Rodney's own eyes tear up until he blinked them away.

John shook his head. " I don't know. Maybe I need to think about it. But I'm too tired to think."

" Then think about it when you're not. Until then, don't worry. Just... focus on being alive. That's all I ask. Don't worry about giving up or anything like that. It doesn't really matter. You're alive and, personally, that's all any of us really care about. So just think about that."

John's head dropped more than rolled to go back to facing Rodney, and his eyes flickered with fear. " You leaving?"

" Not unless someone comes along to keep my seat warm. But let's change the subject. Present conversation is making me depressed. Hey, did you know Zelenka likes car racing?"

John shook his head. " No."

" He does. Freakiest thing. I found out when a race popped up onto his laptop instead of his formula. The way he reacted, you'd think it had been some rated X movie."

Rodney heard a soft, breathy sound, and realized that John was chuckling.

" What is with you scientists not wanting anyone to know you have interests outside of science?"

Rodney shook his head. " I have no idea. I'm quite proud of the fact that I enjoy hockey."

" Then I guess I was hallucinating when I caught you laughing your ass off watching Sponge Bob with Cadmen and Beckett."

Rodney blanched but other than that maintained his outward calm. " I will neither confirm nor deny it."

Again came that breathy, tired chuckle. " Whatever Rodney." Then he started coughing.

SGA

John was sick. High fever, coupled with congestion that had him coughing until he could barely pull in more air. Teyla and Ronon walked in after waiting half the day to see John, and found him suffering both that breathing apparatus at the nose and a feeding tube through the nose. Instead of buried beneath blankets, he was covered by a single sheet pulled up only to his waist, and the hospital gown pulled down below his chest. The bandages were gone, the bony body and red, scabbing wound exposed, as Beckett cleaned that wound using a Q-tip. At the same time, a nurse was wiping John's forehead and arms with a wet cloth.

What really caught Teyla's attention was the look of terror in John's bloodshot and wildly roving eyes. His breathing was fast and raspy, and his arm flailed weakly trying to push Beckett away only to have the doctor set the arm back on the bed.

" Dr. Beckett?" Teyla asked, all ready to dismiss themselves if this was a bad time. Instead, Beckett brightened and waved them over.

" Teyla, Ronon, I'm glad you're here. I need a bit of help. The Colonel's fever is up and combined with lack of sleep it's made him delirious. The poor lad's frightened and I need help calming him down so I can finish this."

Teyla needed no further bidding and was by John's side, taking his weakly roaming hand and clasping it in both of hers, being careful of the I.V. Ronon just stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, shifting from foot to foot periodically. The nurse wiping John down moved to the other side of the bed to give Teyla room.

Now that she was in closer proximity, Teyla could both feel and see John shaking. She began massaging his warm hand in hers, which drew his attention in her direction, but not his focus. His glassy eyes kept rolling as though searching for something in the dark.

" John?" she said. Now was one of those times when first name basis really mattered.

" Teyla?" John replied in a rasp. " Teyla, what's going on? I'm cold."

" You have a fever, John, and need to be cooled. Dr. Beckett is cleaning your wound. You are all right, no one is trying to hurt you."

John turned his head away to look up at the ceiling. He arched slightly, then dropped back down, squirmed, and arched again as though trying to dislodge something jabbing into his back.

" M-my back hurts," he croaked. " My jaw..."

Teyla looked at Dr. Beckett.

" I believe it's from that machine he's connected to," Beckett replied without looking up from his work. " The fever's havin' him slip off to sleep more, which increases the connection."

Teyla recalled Dr. McKay telling them about this human-like machine called a robot, hadn't understood any of it except that destroying it might hurt Sheppard worse, so she took Beckett's word for it.

" I'm tired," John whimpered. " I'm tired, I'm so tired, oh gosh..." he closed his eyes, then snapped them open with a gasp and a more violent shudder. " I'm tired," he whispered over and over again until deranged laughter interrupted the chant, melding into sobbing with tears sliding down along his cheekbone. Keeping her left hand in his, she reached out with her right to brush through his sweat-drenched hair.

It hurt to watch him, like a knife of ice through both the gut and the heart. The hurt increased when she tried to fight back her own tears that triumphed anyways and spilled out.

" There really is nothing we can do?" she asked, choked. Finally, Beckett did look up, his expression sad and tired.

" No lass. Not at the risk to Colonel Sheppard's life."

John closed his eyes again, opened them with a gasp, then a whimper. " Oh gosh, make it stop, I just want to sleep, please..."

When Beckett finished cleaning, he covered the wound with gauze pads, taped them into place, then with Ronon's and Teyla's help, lifted the weakened Colonel enough to rewrap his ribs. Once complete, Beckett lifted the gown back over Sheppard's chest and tied it around the neck. Sheppard's hand clung to the doctor's sleeve as he begged and sobbed for sleep.

sgasgasgasgasgasgasga

Elizabeth could only watch Sheppard. His concentration had been pooled on remaining awake, leaving little leeway for simple conversation. His eyelids twitched and fluttered, snapped open, attempted to slide close, then snapped open again. It hurt to watch, and made Elizabeth want to reach out and close his eye lids for him. Except it wasn't up to her to let him know when to sleep, it was up to some damn robot clinging pointlessly to existence. And there could be no touching John except to help him in staying awake. The lightest brush against his fingers, shoulder, or head and he would flinch, then struggle, trying to squirm away from that touch, begging not to be hurt, or apologizing profusely for whatever he'd thought or said against this Meyon creature. Pure delirium, Beckett had said. The poor pilot had no idea if he was coming or going, here or back in that nightmare.

In her short time since taking up the vigil so Sheppard wouldn't be alone, she'd cried three times, and her face was still wet from all three. Not being able to take his hand or place her own hand on his shoulder, to physically ground him in the here and now, hurt just as much as watching this torment. His chest pulsated with panting breaths, interrupted by liquid-like coughs gurgling and slapping up his throat. And his skin wasn't just white, it was going on gray.

On his next coughing fit that had his head lifting off the pillow, a string of saliva slid down his cheek, and Elizabeth had to clench her fist to keep from wiping it away with the cloth on the tray beside her. The only help she could provide was offering water when he voiced in a croak or whimper the need for a drink.

When the coughing finished, John inhaled a breath that sounded like it was scraping his throat, and dropped his head back on the pillow. On occasion he sometimes mumbled, but now, instead, began humming. It sounded like something Johnny Cash, going on for a while, then stopping when the coughs started. When the coughs stopped, he started humming something else, escalating toward murmured words that Elizabeth caught to be "Don't fear the Reaper," at which, after a moment, John coughed out an unstable laugh and went back to humming.

" Any change I should know about love?"

Elizabeth didn't turn her head. She didn't have to with Carson now standing beside her. She gripped the rails of the bed to keep her hand from wandering out and brushing back John's sweat-slicked hair. " He's getting worse."

Carson moved, and Elizabeth caught the flash of dim light off the end of his stethoscope. " His coughing?"

" I meant him mentally," she replied.

Carson slipped the stethoscope down the front of the loosely tied gown. Even with his chest wrapped, John still felt it, and he gasped, his body going rigid. He squirmed, trying to push away, but was too weak to even manage a centimeter.

" Shhh, it's all right lad," Carson soothed.

" John?" Elizabeth joined in. " Listen to my voice. You're all right. It's just Carson checking your temperature. Can you hear me John?"

John's blood-shot and wild eyes flicked to her face and stayed. She smiled at him calmly though inside she felt apprehensively ill. It should have been impossible for John to be able to hold out this long without sleep. But then again, this was John, the epitome of impossible in more ways than one. Still, even pulling it off, Elizabeth didn't need to be a doctor to know that even his stubborn body would eventually drop. What made her ill was that, according to Carson, he could very well drop off into death rather than sleep. His body was weak enough for the possibility.

When Carson finished, working fast as possible to diminish John's time in anxiety, he pulled the stethoscope away and stepped back.

" See John?" Elizabeth said with a forced, sad smile. " You're all right."

He blinked rapidly as though trying to clear his vision, then nodded. Elizabeth's smile became genuine, until she looked at Carson and his solemn expression.

" Congestion's getting' worse, and his heart rate's up. I'm going to have to attach the monitor. Elizabeth, if this doesn't end soon so he can get some sleep – I'll be blunt, it's going to kill him."

Elizabeth nodded, her throat closing off. " I know. You've said."

Carson shook his head, pursing his lips, and Elizabeth caught what she swore was a shimmer of moisture in his eyes. " We just got him bloody back. And all he needs is bloody sleep. Gaw, all I want to do is give him a sedative. But knowin' what he'll go through when put under makes me sick. It's bloody well pissin' me off. Damn wraith are bad enough eatin' us, they have to put us through hell to boot. I've never been a deeply religious man, but wraith are devil spawn if ya ask me. Pure and simple. Hard ta deny the devil when ya've seen his handy work in the flesh."

Nodding again, Elizabeth placed her arms on the rail of the bed, and her head on her arms. " I think John would readily agree with you on that if he could."

John coughed, which caused him to squeeze his eyes shut that promptly snapped back open, and he whimpered.

SGA

John was losing. He couldn't keep his eyes open forever, and couldn't deny the demands of his pain-wracked body. His heart felt like it was being tossed around and pummeled, and his chest heavy with lungs lined in cotton. He was hot, and yet cold covered his skin like a wet suit. Then there was his head, and the stabbing, cracking, pound in his skull, expanding to try and crush his brain. His gut churned and roiled in nausea but he lacked the strength to throw up.

He'd tried distraction after distraction, forcing his brain to work equations, to recall the lyrics to songs. He made his thoughts move fast, focusing in on some, then pulling away when they began slipping off incoherently, the herald before the dreams. He heard voices, clear sometimes, mangled and resounding others. Echoes of voices he knew, with faces to match when close in, blurred when moving away. But, sometimes, he would hear Meyon scream, hiss, Ient's accusing voice, making him wonder if he were dreaming and couldn't wake up. If he didn't wake up, Meyon would get him, or Ient would be furious.

Except they were dead. He saw their bodies every time he closed his eyes. Meyon still a pile of metal but Ient a pile of black-stained bones still writhing with black-bodied centipede creatures, weaving in and out carrying chunks of meat in their sharp mandibles. John swore he could smell the stench of wraith blood and decay.

The stupid Tin Man wouldn't die. So what if it might hurt should it be smashed to pieces or shut off. Sheppard wanted it smashed. He wanted to sleep, not wake up in another body and another place. He tried willing the thing to die, even attempted closing his eyes to take over the body, and from there attempt to give in to death. Except it was a machine, playing by its own rules, going against Sheppard's will since he was only one component to the entire structure. He was beginning to realize this the more he fought the thing in his myriad of ways. He had thought it his own subconscious keeping the thing alive. But it was a bunch of crap. Even his subconscious didn't want to put up with that pain. So he begged for death in the machine body, while clinging to life in his human body, which was dangerous when the pain melded during transition and he forgot which body he was in.

 _Die already you son of a bitch!_ His mind screamed, his body screaming with it. He must have said it out loud, when the voices became frantic and the faces loomed closer.

John didn't care anymore. He wanted the damn thing dead.

" Just kill it... kill it... Please..." He didn't know if anyone heard. He could barely hear himself, and couldn't get his voice to go any louder. Took too much energy, energy he needed to stay awake.

 _Please let it die... please..._

When he closed his eyes, to see elsewhere, he stiffened with pain, then attempted to recoil from the huge centipede scuttling toward him smooth and quick. His view of the two corpses became blocked by the segmented body crawling over the metal face of Tin Man. John felt its many sharp claws clattering over the metal flesh, felt it squeeze through the crack in the glass of the metal ribs like a gash in John's flesh and bone side. The feet pierced tubes, mandibles cut wires and punctured holes in the mechanical heart, searching for the organic. It gnawed and nibbled on this and that, spilling fluid like internal bleeding, then it left finding nothing worth eating. All the while, John choked on his own screams of agony that diminished when the creature left.

John woke up, gasping and sputtering as his weak hand pawed at his own side where the centipede had entered. Even with that kind of pain ripping through him, waking up had been a struggle. He felt a hand grab his wrist to pin his arm down. He tried to pull away but lacked the strength to do so. A Scottish voice told him to calm down, that it would be all right.

 _Ha!_ Fat chance there. _Promises, promises._ So where were the results? It wasn't going to be all right, not until Tin Man was dead. The thing was better off without a heart.

Then John's body was flooded in overwhelming lethargy. This was it, the final pull to bring him under and stick him back in that metal husk for more fun in the basement of hell. And it was happening fast. John's eyes drooped toward close, and not even the grip on his wrist sent the fear stampeding enough for him to snap awake.

Except when he closed his eyes, the dungeon was hazed in a blurring fog, thickening, numbing him. The mechanical heart thumped slower, stuttering, then seeming to trip over itself until...

Everything stopped – the pain, the robot ticker – and the world went black like a light being flipped off. Darkness, nothing but, and it was nice – warm, safe, silent, and free. John had never thought darkness could be so heavenly, and yet here he was, basking in it, wrapping himself in it like a blanket.

Not yet. He needed to make sure of something first, so forced his eyelids apart and blinked until the world around him focused.

Beeping of a heart monitor, the smell of antiseptic – John smiled and breathed out a sigh.

" Colonel Sheppard? John, lad?"

 _Don't forget the Scotsman._ Carson's face was hovering over John's. John, smiling, pushed every iota of hidden strength into his one good arm to lift it and clutch weakly at Carson's sleeve.

" I-it's... over," he breathed. Then began chuckling, softly at first, then slightly faster and noisier. Tears leaked from the corner of his eyes, tears of sweet, indescribable relief. " I can sleep now. I can sleep..."

Carson's face broke out into its own smile of relief. He patted John's hand, then took it and gently maneuvered it beneath the warm covers. " Ya sleep then, lad," he said, and John was vaguely surprised to see tears in Carson's eyes. " You sleep. We'll be right here waitin' for ya when you're done."

John would have slept with or without permission, but felt safe in Beckett's assurance. So he let his eyes slide close, sinking into the soft, yielding mattress, wrapping himself in the warm darkness. He felt in the distance blankets being pulled up to his neck, and a warm hand on his forehead. Then he felt nothing, and liked it that way.


	5. Epilogue

Epilogue

Shriek of pain, of death, shriek of metal. The freedom of flight, wind roaring passed the ears, over the body like water, flying up and away, into the sky, to the stars where nothing could reach him. He felt warm velvet softness on his cheek, and looked up into the sapphire orb within the night-black skin.

 _Don't let this change you..._

Then he woke up.

John lifted his head from his pillow – his own pillow, on his own bed, in his own room. Two days after John's fever had finally let up, Carson had given him the okay to recover in his quarters. What was ironic was that John hadn't even pestered the Highland doc into relenting. Most of John's time in the infirmary was a haze to him, seeing as how he was asleep for most of it. He probably would've still been a resident if all the activity hadn't kept waking him up. Anything from a dropped bed pan to Beckett shouting code this or code that while rushing along side a gurney transporting the recently injured would have John not only jerking awake but panicking in momentary delirium as he tried to recall where he was.

So rather than sedate him – which Carson didn't want to do - or resort to strapping him down - which Carson refused to do – he released John to his quarters. No need to keep him lingering when all he needed was rest and food.

John lowered his head back to his pillow. He could have easily drifted off back to sleep, except that he had no desire to just yet. He'd been sleeping non-stop since being confined to his quarters, and that had been yesterday. Reaching out and picking up his watch, he nudged the lights up enough to read the time to be five seventeen a.m. Scratch that, officially two days ago, waking up only enough to drink his meals of broth and soup brought by either Beckett, McKay, Ronon, or Teyla. It would have disturbed John the amount of sleep he was getting with no energy to show for it, but Beckett had assured him time and again that John had a lot of sleeping to make up for.

John pushed himself up on shaky arms, inching into a sitting position on the edge of his bed. His aching body sagged and he remained sagging to catch his breath. Then he stretched, arching his back until it popped, and rubbing the back of his neck.

Besides sleep, John had also been instructed to get up and move about for a few minutes whenever he woke up and felt lucid enough to get his circulation going. John climbed to his unsteady legs to start moving around his room like a drunk tiger. He rubbed the side of his face that scratched his palm with stubble. His body felt like lead trying to pull him back down into sleep, into dreams that alternated between the bad, the really bad, and the tolerable. But it was possible to be tired of being tired, which John was. He wanted a moment of coherence, of feeling the tangible, and firmly ground himself in being back in Atlantis rather than panicking when he tried to recall where he was on waking.

He also didn't want to be alone. Occasional visits by his team were fine but conversation tended to be short and monosyllabic on his end.

Five in the morning wasn't normally a good time to be seeking out living company, but John knew just the place to go. He grabbed the midnight blue robe from off the chair in the corner of his room and slipped his good arm through one sleeve then adjusting the other side onto the shoulder of his cradled arm. Normally he wasn't a robe-wearing kind of guy, but he was cold in just a T-shirt and sweats, the robe was soft, and it was a birthday present from Elizabeth so felt he owed it to her. It was kind a gag gift – though a nice one – since being the commanding military officer of Atlantis and the resident favorite for lighting up Atlantean artifacts had people barging in on him at odd hours. Hours that included warm nights when he was in nothing but boxers, or was just stepping out of the shower. Locking the door didn't help against persistent scientists who knew a thousand ways to override that lock.

The gift was also revenge for when John had discovered Elizabeth's birthday. But how she found out was simple. Being the leader, she was privy to everyone's birthdays written blatantly in everyone's files.

John didn't tie the robe closed, just let it hang from his shoulders as he headed from his quarters. Beckett hadn't officially confined him as he had officially grounded him, and the Highland doc had been insistent that John move around when he could, so Sheppard felt no qualms about his early morning stroll. His bare feet made quiet slapping sounds on the metal floor, and his movements were deliberate. He met no one as he made his way through the darkened halls, not that he expected to, say for maybe the occasional marine on patrol, but he knew their routes so knew how to avoid them. He didn't have that far to go anyways.

On reaching his destination, John went for the nearest counter and eased himself down onto the nearest stool. Beside him, scattered neatly over the clean metal surface, were mechanical parts, lots and lots of parts, which he knew better than to touch. Instead, he set his elbow on the counter to rest his head in his hand for a light doze. Time passes without notice in a semi-conscious state, and what felt like only seconds later, the door whispered open and the lights flared on, snapping John from his nap to blink against being blinded. He heard someone mumbling to themselves, so turned his body on the swiveling stool to face the door.

McKay, fixated on a scanner, glanced up briefly, fumbled with the scanner nearly dropping it, and yelped, " Colonel!"

John smiled, swiveling back and forth on the stool. " Hi McKay."

McKay gripped the scanner in one hand and covered his heart with the other. " Sheppard, what the hell! Crap! Isn't Morpheus supposed to have you in a head lock or something?"

John furrowed his brow. " Huh?"

" Asleep, aren't you supposed to be dead tired asleep? And did you touch anything?" Rodney added in horror, hurrying over to the organized chaos spread across the counter top.

John continued to swivel, finding the motion relaxing and yet slightly thrilling at the same time. " Believe it or not, McKay, I do have the power of self restraint. I have yet to touch a damn thing in this room."

McKay, still doing visual inventory, snorted. " Uh-huh, good for you, you get a gold star. It's only because I got here in time. Another two minutes and this lab would have been trashed."

John's eyes went heavy lidded. " Oh how you cut me, McKay. If it's any consolation, I'm too tired to be both curious and bored."

Rodney picked up a piece of whatever this stuff was and eyed it carefully. " Then why aren't you back in your room sleeping?"

" 'Cause I need a respite from the respite. So what is this stuff anyways?"

Rodney set that piece down and picked up another. " The inner workings of that culling device that whisked you away to the bad lands." He looked over at Sheppard, looking him up and down as though seeing if making mention of the device would cause a reaction. But seeing as how John didn't recall being culled, this was all news to him, old, boring 'been there done that' news. Then Rodney's brow lifted.

" Of course you'd be a Southpark fan."

John looked down at his black T-shirt with a picture of a cartoon kid wrapped up in an orange parka with face pretty much hidden say for the big eyes by the hood. John took the end of the T and stretched it for a better look at Kenny.

" Buddy at McMurdo gave this to me. He was more of a Cartman fan, but said I reminded him of Kenny."

" Well I can well see how that analogy pertains to here, but what were you doing at a science station in the middle of a perpetual winter wonderland that made your friend think death had a thing for you?"

John released the shirt, smoothing it down so as not to look up and let Rodney see his small grimace. " Oh, you know, whatever came along that struck my fancy. My second week there, I nearly froze to death after being tossed out in the snow in my underwear. Three days later I almost broke my neck while snowboarding. Four days after that had to make an emergency landing in a snow storm, one day after that nearly plowed into a snow bank... Shall I continue?"

John lifted his face to look at a balking McKay. " Wow, you really are Kenny in the flesh."

John held up a finger. " Except what happens to me are close calls. Kenny just dies."

" What about all those times you had to have your heart shocked back on, or when one of us had to give you CPR..."

John held up both his hands. " All right, all right, I give, I'm Kenny. I guess that makes you Cartman..."

McKay went rigid at that and stabbed a stiff finger at John. " Oh don't you even compare me to that fat little creep! I may be unpleasant to be around, but I'm not a jerk like that brat."

John smirked, feeling vindicated. " Didn't figure you for a Southpark follower, McKay."

McKay had turned back to his mess, picking up more parts for further scrutiny. " I'm not. I just tend to indulge in the complete idiocy of it when I'm bored and there's nothing else to watch. I prefer Futurama anyways."

John swung around on the stool in a full 360 turn, catching the edge of the counter for an abrupt stop. " Why am I not surprised?"

Rodney pulled his laptop from its carrying case and set it up on the counter. " Did you come here to discuss cartoons or were you just lonely? Because I've got a lot of work I'd like to get started on..."

John spun again. " You brought up the cartoon thing. I was just going for a walk. Clearing my head, getting the cobwebs out."

John waited for what he thought to be the inevitable smarmy comeback, but it never came. Instead, silence filled the gap where the response should have come, with McKay seemingly preoccupied with booting up his laptop. He clicked away at a few keys, then stopped.

" Have you given any more thought to... um..."

Again, John wrinkled his brow. " To what?"

McKay looked at him searchingly. " You know what."

John shook his head. He honestly didn't. He'd said a lot of things, thought a lot of things, as he fought to stay awake. " McKay, come on. This is the most clear-headed I've been since you guys picked me up from that planet. You're going to have to give me a little more than that."

McKay rolled his eyes to the ceiling with a huffed exhale and started tapping the side of the laptop. " It's just that..."

John stared at the physicist for a moment, then rolled his hand to hurry him along. " It's just that? Come on, McKay, spit it out."

McKay looked down at the keyboard, still tapping, holding his tongue firmly between his lips at the corner of his mouth. Then, finally, he straightened with another – though more slower – exhale. " The last time you were kind of, sort of, coherent, before you got sick, you talked about... talked like... you were giving up. Not giving up on living but giving up on," he gestured one handed around the room, " this, all of this. The expedition, being military commander, going off world... all of it. I was just wondering if you still meant it or... totally forgot until I just now reminded you so that now you can go through with it."

John started in surprise. " I said that?"

McKay wagged his head from shoulder to shoulder. " Uuuhhh... more or less. Something like it. What I said was just the gist. I mean I still don't blame you if you want to... I was just kind of thinking that it might have been a heat of the moment thing. You were tired, in a lot of pain, so granted you wouldn't want to put up with anything anymore. Of course now that it's over..."

Recollection finally snapped its lazy carcass into action, and John remembered. " Ooohhhh. Now that it's over, I wouldn't feel the same."

McKay nodded. " Exactly. I mean it's your choice (though personally at this juncture I would consider it the cowards way out). Not that I'm calling you a coward! Because you're not. I mean if anyone has to a right to be fed up it's you, I just never actually believed such a thing were possible... with you... calling it quits I mean." He drummed his fingers awkwardly, staring at the laptop screen casting a blue glow on his features.

McKay's aforementioned conversation became clear in John's head. What was said, by both of them.

 _Don't let it change you..._ No, McKay hadn't said that, not those words, but his point had been more or less the same.

John planted his elbow back on the counter to rub his tired face. So many good points and not a damn thing he could think or say to argue against them.

" I'm not," he finally replied. Rodney's head snapped up then around to stare at John wide eyed.

" You're not?"

John nodded, so McKay visibly relaxed with shoulders sagging. " Oh good. I mean, if you'd wanted to, I wouldn't have tried to stop you..."

John dropped his hand. " Yes you would have. You would have with every fiber of your being. And you know why, other than the fact that you like having me as a friend even if you won't admit it?"

Rodney snorted, ready with a comeback, but John interrupted him.

" Because you're right, I'm not a quitter. And you were right to say that me quitting would also mean the bad guys winning, because that's exactly what it would mean. It would mean that I was finally broken, defeated, and I didn't even have to be killed. So I'd rather not give them that satisfaction. But for the most part... yeah, I'm not a quitter."

McKay smiled slightly. " Glad to see your recent torment hasn't changed you."

John flinched at that. Rather than look at Rodney, he looked down at the counter, one finger scratching at what looked to be a stain, probably glue, that came away easily under his ministrations.

" You don't come away from something like that the same man," John said. A shudder coursed through his skinny frame, one he knew Rodney saw plain as day.

" Physically, definitely not," McKay replied.

John nodded. " Stuff like that messes with your head. Not all the time, just now and then when the conditions are right and the memories choose to pop back fresh as yesterday." When the glue spot was gone, John rubbed the area with his thumb until the underlying smudges vanished. " I'm still scared Meyon's going to start slamming against doors or knocking them down to bust in and start ripping a nice big hole in my chest. I know it'll past once I've had enough sleep, but until then every thump, clank, slam or shout keeps trying to give me a heart attack. But what really scares me is the future. Whether or not I'll have to go through something like that again, wondering if you guys can find me, or if you'll be able to make it. Wondering what new form of pain's going to be tried out on me. I normally try not to think about it. Kind of gets in the way of my job if I do. But I can't stop now. I know you guys have had plenty of times where I was almost lost, but this..."

John looked up at McKay. " I always have something to hold onto, you know? Either the prospect of rescue or the prospect of death without uttering a single syllable of useful information to the bastards beating me. But I didn't have squat this time. I wasn't being interrogated, I was being beat for the sake of being beat, for being a lowly, miserable, weak, pathetic side of steak thinking mean thoughts about a deranged robo wraith. And at the same time, Atlantis was being lead around like a pony ride at a carnival. I had _nothing_ to hold on to, and no foreseeable way out. Then there was Atlantis being possibly lost... one way or another. It hurt McKay. That kind of hopelessness? I mean it physically hurt, and I never want to feel that kind of pain again. I really did think this was it and that we were all screwed. Hell, I'm still reeling over the fact that I'm alive and Atlantis is still standing. And I'm scared it'll happen again, only this time with no surprise escape around the bend. And I really don't know if I could take that, not again."

Silence returned, heavy as a shroud. It lasted for five heartbeats before John spoke again.

" But I know I'll get past it... kind of. And I don't want to quit, go back to earth. Not much for me there anyways. At least here I'll be doing something while I'm being haunted," he added with a weak, short lived chuckle, then sighed. He lifted his hand, wanting to say more, but dropped it back to the counter, having nothing more he could think of to say.

" It's all right to be scared sometimes," Rodney said. " Take it from me. The moment my heart rate descends tends to be a major event in my life. You're human. What you went through was scary. And it's going to stay with you for a while, probably a long while."

John closed his eyes, tired before, now utterly bone weary. His chest ached, announcing the approaching time for more pain meds. " It's hard," he said, and released his breath in a long, shuddering exhale. " I'm still scared." Then he opened his eyes. " But I'm not going anywhere."

He felt a hand on his shoulder, so looked up into McKay's completely sympathetic face.

" Good to know."

John smiled. " What do I do then?"

McKay shrugged. " Well, right now I suggest you go back to bed before Carson skins us both. Later... I don't know. Do what you can. Find normalcy. And I know it goes against your nature of being a stubborn ass – but don't refrain from asking for help when you need it."

John patted Rodney's hand still on his shoulder. " Way ahead of you on there," he said, then stood, Rodney's hand sliding from his shoulder. He began making his shuffling way to the door when a thought struck, getting him to pause then turn back to McKay.

" Oh, yeah, there is one thing I wanted to tell you. You're a good scientist, McKay. You take responsibility for your mistakes, even show a little humility now and then. But if I ever catch you becoming obsessive until you go mad scientist on me, I'm sending Beckett after you to sedate you for a week until it passes, got that?"

McKay reared his head back. " What!"

" Just don't ever change," John said, and hurried out the door before McKay recovered himself enough to argue.

SGA

John straightened his black shirt, making this the fifth time he'd done so. He felt more himself back in uniform, or as close as he came to uniform minus his jacket and vest. Four more days of rest, Carson said, then the okay would be given for light duty. Getting back through the gate was going to require a lot more, and for once, John didn't mind. He wasn't ready. Not quite yet. And it wasn't so much a matter of getting more meat back onto his bones (though Carson emphasized weight gain as one of the top priorities to reaching the point of getting back through the gate). He simply... just wasn't ready.

John continued to tug at his shirt, then smoothing it out, his hand running over the ridges of his protruding ribs, making him grimace slightly in discomfort. He then clasped his hands behind his back, only to bring them back around when he realized they were sweaty, and wiped them off on his pants.

He was having second thoughts, unsure if he could do this. It might be taken as a sign of weakness, give others doubts about him, especially his men. Bring down moral...

John twitched his head. He was over analyzing this. It needed to be done whether he liked it or not, because whether he liked it or not, he needed help. Nightmares still ran rampant, and fears sat like boulders in his mind. And though he was sleeping, it was no longer a deep, healthy sleep. It wasn't that long ago his mind and body had screamed for sleep, now they were trying to push him toward insomnia.

And Carson was going to haul him back into the infirmary the moment he caught on.

John jerked his head in a resolved nod. That settled it. He was getting help, and didn't let himself form an opinion of whether or not he liked it. He walked forward, the door slid open, and a surprised Heightmeyer looked up from the book she was reading.

" Colonel Sheppard," she said, mouth slightly agape. " Uh... Can I help you with something?"

Of course she'd be surprised. Of course she would never expect to him see him in a million years, not in her office, more along the lines of either in the infirmary strapped to the bed, refusing to make eye contact, or imprisoned in his quarters.

Although he wasn't making eye contact now. His gaze was on the floor, then sometimes on the wall, his heart pounding fit to burst from his chest. He cleared his throat and lowered his head enough to start rubbing at the back of his neck.

" Um..."

Kate closed her book and set it down on the arm of her chair. " Do you need to talk?" she asked.

John glanced at the door, considering possible escape plans that wouldn't _seem_ like an escape plan.

 _This was a bad idea_. If his heart beat any harder, it was going to explode. He had to pry his hand from his neck, and to his horror saw that his hand was shaking.

 _It shouldn't be this freakin' hard!_

Kate rose from her chair and move toward John. She placed her hand on his arm, and gently began pulling him out the door.

" Here, come with me."

He didn't argue, ask, or try to pull back, but let her guide him down the corridor, then another more devoid corridor until they finally reached their destination of a small balcony. On stepping outside, John found two chairs already set up, facing outward at the ocean rather than each other.

" Have a seat," Kate said.

John did so, his back rigid and his hand clasping his knees. Kate shut the door and initiated the lock, then took the seat beside John, leaning back with a contented sigh. " Some find this more tolerable than an office setting. I'm inclined to agree." She looked over at John, then reached out, wrapping her fingers around his wrist and giving it a gentle squeeze. " It's all right, John. Give yourself a moment. Talk when you're ready, or don't. We can just sit, if you want."

John let out a sharp breath. " I uh... don't know how... this works..."

Kate smiled. " There's no method. I may ask questions, unless you just want me to listen. Usually the best way to begin is to say what's on your mind, even if you think it might sound strange, or has nothing to do with what you really want to say. You eventually get to where you're going, so it doesn't matter how you begin."

John nodded, swallowing, gripping the material of his BDUs until his knuckles turned white. Then he released his grip and the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

" It's funny," he began. " After something's happened, something weird, and I wake up, I expect to hear certain sounds..."

The End


End file.
